Headlight Restoration

[miks15]

Morning All,

The headlights on my E30 had seen better days, 1 was all cloudy and the first time I drove it at night I realised they weren't aimed correctly. The headlight levelling system had also failed so I was going to convert to manual. So I pulled the headlights out hoping to do a minor rebuild to free up the adjusters and convert to manual and clean up the cloudy lens... Its here where I started to discover it wouldn't be quite so simple!

Firstly one of the high beams had been swapped for a Hella unit whilst there rest of the lights were Bosch. No biggie except I wanted them all matching. And also someone had replaced the RHS low beam had been replaced with a LHS low beam unit - naturally the holes for the adjusters didn't line up so a cable tie was used to get it to stay in place - No wonder the aim was off a bit! One of the chrome rings was also missing.

Here are the headlights when I started: (you can see the cable tie bottom middle of the first pic!)

Anyway I was looking at new aftermarket lights,, but decided I wanted to keep original Bosch units not some unknown brand. So I found a full set on ebay for £80 which had seen better days - however I was hoping there'd be enough parts between mine and the new set to get one good set.

Here's one of the "new" units:

I'll break the thread up in to a few posts to keep it more manageable... more to follow!

[miks15]

Step 2 was to disassemble both sets of lights and see what I had available. Getting all of the adjusters out was quite time consuming as I was being very careful not to break any. I knew between my 2 sets I should just have enough to make 1 good working set (if I could un-seize them!). The rest of the headlights came apart fine and I ended up with the following parts:

12 adjustment screws unbroken (all seized)
1 Hella high beam
3 Bosch high beam (1 cloudy)
3 RH low beams and 1 LH low beam
5 undamaged trim rings

So enough to make 1 full set of clean Bosch headlights with enough adjusters to convert them to manual as well.

I next set about trying to free up the adjusters. I started by soaking them all in WD40 just to help them along. I took a small wire brush and gently cleaned up the exposed thread so the adjust part had clean threads to move up to and slowly with the help of a vice and some mole grips started trying to turn them. And to my surprise they all loosened up quite easily. So I now have 8 fully working adjusters. Result.

Here are all the adjusters and the ball joint mount/pivot things!

Next post I'll cover how I cleaned up the lights themselves which was last nights job.

[miks15]

So last night I finally got round to what I thought was cleaning up the lights and re-assembly. (I first pulled the headlights from the car 3 weeks ago and various things have got in the way! Car looks a bit sad with its lights and grille missing on the drive).

So I started with the high beams as they were the smaller simpler unit. Gave them a good brush with some degreaser and washed all the road grime off them and the came up looking great. Here's a side by side.

So on to the Low beams. Since I only had one LH unit I kind of had to use this one, and then I thought I'd pick the best out of the 3 RH units. On closer inspection though I realised I had another problem. The reflector inside the LH unit was ruined and the inside of the lens was also very dirty. It was at this point I realised I had to split open the headlights and mix and match housings, reflectors and lenses to get what I needed.

I looked about online to see what I could find about doing this and didn't find a great deal, some different methods but no concrete how to. I took one of the space lenses (didn't matter if it went wrong) and tried cutting as much glue as possible. Tried prying a bit under the lens and eventually broke a bit of the plastic housing. I then thought id try some time in the oven to soften the glue a bit. I took a guess and stuck one in for 10mins on 170C. To my surprise the lens then peeled off quite easily.

Spurred on I took apart the other 3 following the same process of cutting as much glue as I could first, popping it in the oven for 10 mins, and gently with a blade to cut a bit more glue if needed and a flat head screwdriver gently twisting and moving round I got them all apart which has left me with this:

So I now have the following:

1 LH housing
3 RH housing (1 damaged)
4 lenses
2 bad reflectors
2 good reflectors

Another result in the end.

[miks15]

So this is where I am now. Next step is to clean up the lenses and re-assemble the low beams. Should hopefully get a chance to tackle this on either Friday or Sunday.

Couple of questions on next steps:

Anyone have any recommendations on cleaning up the lenses. May as well give them a good polish up whilst I have them like this and some of them have a very slight haze on the front of them.
Any recommendations on a glue to reattach the lens to the housing?

Cheers!

[Foe]

Fair play, nice work
I'm sure there's some substances on the internet which claim to clean glass, but not sure what to suggest. I've used t-cut on plastic lenses.

[paultv]

I did mine last year I'll post some details on the materials I used.

Silkaflex 221 is the "glue" you need to re fit the lens'

Be ultra careful with the coated reflectors, the electro plating is extremely thin and any abrasion will leave them looking worse. Also very hard to clean water spots off the lens surfaces, dishwasher liquid leaves the least marks.

Buy a lens ( glass) polishing kit off flea bay with pads and paste but take your time the glass will crack if it gets too dry and hot whilst cutting or polishing.

Paul

I was always going to throw out my old bulls eyes as they were so shot, but after a lot of work I finally bonded the lens' back on today. The white pinstripes had long gone, so I polished out the remnants - I reckon these now look pretty good, they both took about 4 hours to cut back and polish - get the glass too hot and they crack, so it's slow work.






Paul

[flybynite]

I used grades of diamond pad (also used wet and dry) to get the lenses flat, then Cerium Oxide to polish the sanding marks out.

As Paul says SLOW, not just SLOW but REALLY SLOW

[miks15]

Thanks for the tips guys.

I'll get some bits ordered to polish them up and give it a go over the weekend!

Few other jobs to get done on the car over the weekend as well so hopefully some good progress and I can get it driveable again.

[Gert_8]

Great thread miks15.

[martauto]

Great thread miks15.

Agreed mate

Mart.

[ravstar13]

Sorry to butt into the thread but how did you remove the rings, I have managed to remove the inner ones but the outer seem a little impossible without bending??

[miks15]

Hey All,

Apologies for not posting for a while - but I did get the headlights finished a few weeks ago and completely forgot to post an update!

Got the lenses polished up as best I could (Not perfect but they look 10 times better than they ever did and now no cloudy-ness at all. Stood around the car they look like new, upclose you can notice a few minor spots. Here they are:

The outer rings still need finishing. Tried cleaning them up with a wire wheel, and then with some sand paper etc but they are very flimsy and worried ill bend them so haven't finished them yet. Will either look to get them re-chromed or will get them soda blasted and painted. Ive been away last few weekends and its dark at night when I get home now - will try post a fitted picture over the weekend!


Ravstar - I just did it very gently... Some were definitely trickier than others. I used a wide trim tool to try not and put too much pressure on one point and risk bending it. Luckily I had a few extra rings so it wasn't too bad if I bent 1 or 2 slightly, could just pick the best ones.

[RTTBMW]

Great job there! I painted my rings gloss black as the grille is all black anyway!

[miks15]

Cheers RTT.

I am tempted to go black. I thought it'd be nice to go chrome to tie it to the kidney grille but they are so recessed you can barely see the ring anyway so may just end up going black anyway

[flybynite]

AFAIK they were never chrome , just painted grey. They were not chrome on my early chromie so I guess if anything had chrome headlight rings that would have.

[martauto]

AFAIK they were never chrome , just painted grey. They were not chrome on my early chromie so I guess if anything had chrome headlight rings that would have.

Too true, they were not chrome but more of the same colour as the bottle top wheels.
I painted a set the same colour and they looked great.
I have just bought a set of "depo " Angle eyes" and they have chrome rings so when they are on I will post a pic or two.

Mart.

[Cloggy Saint]

As a self-confessed tosser I have to point out that they're Angel eyes, not Angle, big difference

[flybynite]

As a self-confessed tosser I have to point out that they're Angel eyes, not Angle, big difference

I thought he was fitting one of these

You can take the engineer out of the Zone...........

As for the angel eyes. Nooooooooooooooo far to council for a classic chromie

[ChrisHC]

As a self-confessed tosser I have to point out that they're Angel eyes, not Angle, big difference

Indeed, not Angles but Angels as some Roman emperor was reputed to have said about some captured Anglo-Saxons, if I remember rightly from school many years ago!

[ChrisHC]

It might be worth pointing out that smiley low beam units are not specifically LH or RH dip, they can be changed from left to right. To do this loosen the three screws that are round the rim, they need to be loosened far more than appears necessary, pull back the main body of the unit and rotate it so that the screws move along their slots to the other end, then tighten them. this can even be done when they are in the car, with a bit of dexterity and a screwdriver of just the right length.

[miks15]

Ah right - I just assumed they used to be chrome and mine had just faded an awful lot! Makes more sense that they were grey. In which case I will probably just paint black!

Mart - would be great to see a pic of yours when fitted just to see if chrome is worth going for.

[martauto]

As a self-confessed tosser I have to point out that they're Angel eyes, not Angle, big difference

Had a glass of "shandy" so thats whi tha spellllin mikstsske.
Mart.