Retrofitting these headlights? 01-04

Trying to get these apart, tried the usual 300f for 8 minutes. Anyone Retro'd these lights before and have any tips?

 

Are you sure they aren't permasealed?

 

The sealant around it is grey so I figured not. However, it's not budging very much. Especially compared to other lights I've done.

 

I have. A little more work to get these ones apart. I can't remember the temp and time, I wanna say like 275 for 10-15 min.s. But don't take my word on it. I had to pry it open using a couple screwdrivers then use a gasket scraper that it a little wider than a flatgead and pry it in sections moving around leaving the other screwdrivers as a jam to hold it open. And also keep in mind these headlights are only adjustable up and down. So you might want to adjust the projector left and right before u tighten it up. I had the reflector break loose on one side. I think I baked it one too many times trying to get the lens off. I just bought a new set too to try it again. I need to do a write up for whoever uses these headlights.
You can check out my thread in hid planet, not much of a writeup tho.
http://www.hidplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?50430-2001-Tacoma

 

Thanks man! I really appreciate it!

 

I usually have my oven at 350, turn off oven and leave headlights in there for 5 minutes. I take them out and test them to see if I can peel it back, if not than I turn on the oven again and put the temps at 350 again, turn off and leave it in there for another 5 minutes.

 

Well the sealant in these headlights is really hard grey shit. Not sure what it is. But it's hard to get it to soften up. Then after it's out of oven it hardens back up really quickly. But I think he got em apart already.

 

Yep I got it. On a side note, all the normal black headlights with clear corners are disappearing off eBay, the only ones left are outrageously priced. I'm worried about the future of these headlights I wanted to do a MD2S 3.0 Retro with a new pair.. seems like all the headlights are getting replaced by these damn one-piece ones..

 

Just look at this price gouging.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/01-04-TOYOT...2001|Model:Tacoma&hash=item3cd600b19b&vxp=mtr

 

you can always get the ones with LEDs or just paint the other ones black as you are opening them always

 

Hmm...Honda headlights use the grey stuff as well and I don't have a hard time. On the note of price gouging thats always gonna happen. Until theres a huge flood of them on ebay from different sellers thats when it starts to go down.

 

The ones with LEDs are a huge PITA though, I am not sure if I want to do any more of those. It was a major struggle. On top of that I had to bust out the Dremel to remove the bulb reflector holder piece, it was in the way of the projector fitting properly. It was a lot of extra work for something that typically takes me 3 hours start to finish. From the time I popped the hood on my dad's Eclipse to the point where I had them remounted took about 3 hours.

 

Yeah like I said I'm redoing a new set and see how they work out this time around. If something breaks again I'm gonna do stock replacements. The very first set of these one piece I bought wasn't sealed well enough and I had a puddle of water inside after a long rain and the bulb exploded inside. I think the build quality on these are shit, but I really like them and really want them to work. Ha.

 

LOL!

Look at the 16 units sold... they're $92.99

 

That's how much they used to be. Then supply stopped and I guess the seller figured he could capitalize on this opportunity. Can't believe the number of watchers for these headlights.. usually around 20 for each. Bunch of people are probably waiting to see if the price will ever go down.

 

Yeah they really are, if the housing itself wasn't flimsy plastic then these would probably be much easier to get apart.