Baking my headlights to remove condensation

Is this a good idea? I got it sitting in the oven at around 185 degrees Fahrenheit, am I gonna fuck up the seals or anything?

inb4
>does something
>asks if it's a good idea halfway through doing it

Not a bad idea but keep it at 120F max, you'll melt the glue holding the lens. Also, you need to find out why its collecting moisture I.e. Clogged vent

It's toasty but I don't smell anything burning? Am I gonna make it Veeky Forums?

Stick a wooden spoon to hold the oven door open a bit and set the oven to the lowest heat setting possible. Should work, thats how I make home made beef jerky

condensation inside your headlamp?

fix whats letting the moisture in, then rinse the fucker out with alcohol. Ideally you'd use compressed air to dry the living fuck out of it before reassembly.

pic unrelated

cook some pizza alongside with it.

Headlights are made to be baked in the sun all day so it should be fine. Put it on the absolute lowest setting and keep the door cracked.

I sloshed the water around all the edges, it didn't leak through any of the glue. could it be a gasket around one of the bulbs that's letting water through?

done it about a half dozen times for retrofits. Keep it at 150-200F, whatever lowest setting your oven can handle (at that low range, most consumer ovens aren't that accurate but whatever). It'll take 10-15 minutes to get the adhesive loose enough to split the housings apart.

Its best to get a set of thick gloves or something as you're going to be handling a pretty hot headlight.

Alternately you could use rice. That's how you fix electronics that have gotten wet. Put them in a bag of rice overnight.

The rice attracts Asians who will come and fix your electronics at night.

>you're going to be handling a pretty hot headlight.

Did someone say Hot Headlight?

bad-tum-tish

Those are some nice legs

Why is there bubble rap on the floor?

she opened the disco balls obviously

The only way to correctly do this is to bake them, take them apart, clean them up, and reseal them.

If water got in once, it will continue getting in. Its a pain in the ass process, and needs to be delicately done.

Do not use a heat gun, hair dryer at most ton separate. Remove all the old glue.

usually people 'bake' their headlights to soften the adhesive sealant so that they can separate the lens, i dont think you need to bake it just to dry it out

Alright so I've determined that I need to remove the lens

How do I reseal? Will the factory sealant be enough if it's all soft and shit? What am I going to walk into the auto parts store and look for?

Baking the lense may or may not work - it depends entirely on what they used as a factory as a sealant.

For my 03 Saab 9-5, the material they used was essentially some kind of cement and heat did jack squat. Ultimately what I had to do was use a dremel to cut all the way around and pull off the lense, then seal it back up afterwards using Butyl sealant I bought off of Amazon.

Luckily for me, it worked out perfectly - it's been 2 years and I haven't gotten any leans into the headlamp assembly.

In my case, though, I wouldn't even have done it if it weren't for the fact that the lense for my headlamp got destroyed by a fat, errant chunk of ice on the freeway. I had a spare lying around and my original plan was to just pull off the lenses and swap them, but because that wasn't possible I ended up transplanting all the guts from one to the other.

When i did DIY black housing headlights i had to use a heat gun. It fucks up the plastic but whatever.

>Baking my headlights to remove condensation


You could always get an aquarium air pump. Those have tiny plastic hoses that would fit through one of the light bulb holes. The constant fresh air going into the housing would dry out the assembly.

If you have a dust filter lying around, find a box that has an opening that can fit it. Get an aquarium filter and put that inside the box. Then put the HEPA filter over the box's opening and duct tape the edges closed. That way, all air going into the lens assembly should be dust free.

When in doubt, apply MacGyver.

rtv silicone

>they put the cheaper 2 liters up high

just toss one of those silica gel packs or rice in there over night and then take out in the next day