How To Take The Front Headlight Cover Of Xenon S3 R33 Gtr

[BCNR33GT-R]

Anyone know how to take the front of the headlight off xenon S3 headlights for R33 GTR, I wanted to clean the insides of them both?

regards,

tom

Edited September 14, 2012 by Turbo tommy

[Shoota_77]

You put them in the oven for long enough to melt the sealer between the housing and the glass.

Obviously not too long that the housing melts!

Hopefully some of the other guys can actually give you a time frame and temperature.

Or, trial and error of the extremely cautious variety!

[R31Nismoid]

Just get a heat gun out and do one side at a time if you don't want to oven it. (ive done it that way with 2 sets).

You can touch feel to ensure you aren't making it "too" hot, or if you are you'll smell it lol.

Once it's fairly warm to touch it'll either start separating easily or it won't. If it doesn't just give it a little more time for the heat to soak through the plastic into the glue. Obviously you need to remove all the clips before hand.

The only real tricky area is the careful on the end/curve edges on the side where the parker light is. They can break off/crack easily if you put too much pressure onto them so you tend to need to have the heat in there and be careful with how much pressure. If you take off the other sides (the bulk of the cover) first it makes it much easier

[BCNR33GT-R]

haha cheers? Did they come up good once cleaned ill be using the platix meguires.. i've cleaned the outside numerous times and there in good shape but u can see on the inside there a lil yellow,does it help to clean the inside of them at all?

[R31Nismoid]

IMO it wont help at all and requires far too much effort, plus meguires stuff i find is far overpriced and underperforms

Do what i did

(warning: the below will fire people up lol)

Get a buffer out and cut down a buff pad. Using cutters, same as that with car detailing, bit of water and off you go. It'll come up a treat in a very short period of time with all the shit removed easily. The area's the buff cant reach just use a rag for those and some elbow grease if needed.

You can do the same on the outside as well and then just sandpaper with a buffer back going back to 2000grit/wet or whatever you feel happy with in terms of finish and then just polish up.

Just make sure you don't get the surface too hot when cutting/sanding and they should come up almost clear/like new without a problem and sure beats doing it by hand and taking 4x as long.

Sometimes the insides just cannot be cleaned up too well though and will still be cloudy afterwards, but they will look massively better. With a buff I had each lense done in around 10-15mins if you are prepped and ready to go. I had 4 done in just over an hour but did stop to talk shit, was @ a mates workshop at the time.

[BCNR33GT-R]

yeah ill have to get those tools together and have a go at it soonish, these are the lights i got the outside fixed up abit but if u look closer on the inside its liked glazed and looks like tiny cracks although i dont think they are cracks just needs a fix up thats for sure haha.

[R31Nismoid]

Yeah yours are certainly inside

There will be some hairline cracks, mine had a few. But they are just surface and if you cut/sand them back then you can remove them totally. Seems fairly common with aged/weathered R33 Xenons

[BCNR33GT-R]

Yeah I thought so, yeah it sounds like abit of a mission to though ay.. Haha

[BCNR33GT-R]

Could you show me were exactually to use the heat gun for separation nismoid? Maybe some pics cheers lad.

[R31Nismoid]

All around the joints mate. Once you take off the metal clips - there is sealant around the entire frame where the headlight cover goes into the black plastic body

[BCNR33GT-R]

Ok and how do I put back on the same way I took off?

[R31Nismoid]

I heated up the glue & cleaned/dug most of the old stuff out and totally resealed it all. Maybe I didn't have too, not sure but i do know it wasn't going back in well at all (you need to heat back up again to reseal as the old glue hardens).

I can't think of what was used to reseal it, i do know it came in a roll like Blutack, and just pressed it in, heated and pressed the cover back in. Then applied the clips

[BCNR33GT-R]

ok well now i know how to do it cheers nismoid, I have another qeustion i was looking to replace the lo beam and high beam bulbs to brighter ones not hids but close, I have taken the high beams out but dont know how to take the low beams out? Can u help me on that.

regards

[BCNR33GT-R]

here is a picture of what i mean.