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Headlight lens and reflector removal

Orangebean

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#1

Many of you will remember my rather impatient removal of a headlight with a cracked lens and rusted fittings from a while ago:
enter image description here
The time has come to repeat a similar process, with less collateral damage, on another car.
My question is, how do you separate the lens and reflector unit from the black plastic mounting moulding?
I have a complete light with a good lens/ reflector but a broken mounting and a headlight with a mounting moulding with all of its bolts and adjusters intact but a knackered reflector. All I need to do is marry the two good bits.
Any advice welcome!

Morat

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(Last modified: by Morat)
#2

I've heard of people doing this by heating the whole lot up in an oven until the glue melts. I don't know if it works for P38 unit but it's worth a Google for gas mark, minutes per pound etc 😁

no10chris

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#3

Good luck with that OB

gordonjcp

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#4

The lamp assembly ought to pretty much just pop off its balljoints, with a little persuasion.

Morat

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#5

Ash
I thought you were trying to separate the lens from the reflector.

Orangebean

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#6

gordonjcp wrote:

The lamp assembly ought to pretty much just pop off its balljoints, with a little persuasion.

That's what I thought with the one in the picture :)
Is that ought to, as in you've done it Gordon, or ought to as in theory?

Orangebean

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#7

Gave the one with the mud splattered and burned on reflector a good soak this morning and can report back that biological washing powder solution is amazingly effective- at removing all the silver from the reflectors.
Good thing it was a scrap unit...

Gilbertd

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#8

Good to know, I won't bother putting a headlight in the dishwasher then. Although it did quite a good job on one of my foglights so maybe washing powder and dishwasher 3 in 1 pods are different......

gordonjcp

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#9

I've done it before, although I had to be pretty brutal with the "scrap" parts.

Orangebean

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#10

gordonjcp wrote:

I've done it before, although I had to be pretty brutal with the "scrap" parts.

Thanks for that Gordon. Got me thinking and I had a flash of inspiration.
I can hot knife the broken back plate to get the good light unit out (once you can get right into the ball joints, warm and lube them they will pop off OK.
The unit with the good back plate I can go in "delicately" through the lens. Once that's out of the way I can hot knife the reflector out of the way and get to the ball joints.
Voila!

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