Hey everyone been a while since I've been on here. Life is going great though anyhow I want to bake my headlight so I can open it up. I've taken off all the metal and any extra material so now I'm ready to bake. My questions are; how long and at what temp should I bake it, and lastly should I just bake it on a piece of plywood or what? It's a headlight for a 1998 Monte Carlo Z34 if that helps.

 

Hey, good to see your back here among us again.

I recently did mine and followed others guidance.

The headlight was placed on a folded towel which I had on top of a cookie baking sheet. I had the oven at 125 degrees and put in for 7 minutes at a time. Pull it out and pry on the lense for a little bit, reinsert it back into the oven and repeat till the lense comes off. You need to exert a mild but somewhat forceful pull on the lense each time and she will eventually separate from the housing. I gently used a flat tip screwdriver to start with the lense removal so i could get the prying action going.

I used the 3M window weld ribbon adhesive to reattach the lense to the housing. Use a fair amount nothing crazy, pull off a somewhat long piece of the window weld tape, but don't tear it away from the main roll. Feed it around the light body into the recessed lense cavity, pull some more and feed it into the cavity till your all the way around the housing. If the window weld is kind of flat, roll it between both palms prior to putting it into the recessed area. Then cut the strip away from the roll. Place the lense back onto the housing and press it back into it's recessed channel. Reheat the whole assembly, remove from the oven and pres the lense further back into the channel. Then reheat again and repeat the process. At some point the lense is fully seated, I then had some bungee cords and wrapped them around the lense / light housing to hold things in place for 12 hours till I was sure all was cooled and anchored. I was careful to insure the bungee metal hooks were on the reverse side and not on the lense so as to not marr them. You can wrap the whole thing in a towel before the bungee cords if it makes you feel better. I bought the 5/16" thick window weld, to little and you will not get a good seal, you may have to go around twice, too much and it will oooze into the housing and you can see it behind the lense. It's a fine line to walk.

If the housing body is not completely cooled each time you put it back into the oven, don't leave it in as long, you just want to try and keep things malable. After your first housing the 2nd will go easier.

The product leaves a black tar residue on your hands and you can easily get it on your lense, so work carefully. It's easier to remove from the lense by using another piece of the window weld to blot the lense or other area your trying to remove it from. Kind of like taking a piece of gum to remove sticky gum from another object, the same principle. Wear gloves or have a petroleum based cleaner han dy to wash your hands with.

Link to the 3M Window Weld below:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3M-Window-We...0a1023&vxp=mtr

 

I baked mine on a cookie sheet.