How to replace the headlight lens??

[thenick]

Hi there, was driving down the road earlier and was lucky enough to have a rather large stone jump up and smash my nearside headlight lens. I say lucky because i'm quite glad it didnt hit the paintwork or windscreen! Anyway I now have a replacement lens from Austec but am unsure how to get the cowling off in order to replace it... Can anyone outline the procedure for me on a 97 Chimaera?

Thanks,

Nick

[PurpleV8]

Hi Nick,
You need to remove the 2 wing nuts below the cowl which will release the blots attached to and holding down the base of the cowl. You can get at these through the front grill but on the N/S dropping the Air Filter first makes life much easier. Once the wing nuts and washers are off, lift up the front of the cowl and then there’s only a spot of sealant on the top to be pulled off. If your lucky and use a bit of soap or silicone spray you can get the new lens into the old rubber seal, but a 97 if still original would probably benefit from the reflector and seal replacing at the same time. Good luck.

Regards
PurpleV8

[ubernoober]

PurpleV8 said:

Hi Nick,
You need to remove the 2 wing nuts below the cowl which will release the blots attached to and holding down the base of the cowl. You can get at these through the front grill but on the N/S dropping the Air Filter first makes life much easier. Once the wing nuts and washers are off, lift up the front of the cowl and then there’s only a spot of sealant on the top to be pulled off. If your lucky and use a bit of soap or silicone spray you can get the new lens into the old rubber seal, but a 97 if still original would probably benefit from the reflector and seal replacing at the same time. Good luck.

Regards
PurpleV8

Depends if you're left or right handed too! I have recently removed my lenses for cleaning and found it easier to go through the wheelarch hatch on the offside and via the grill on the nearside . Make sure you have a long thin pointy thing to oik the dropped nuts and washers back into reach - you will drop them! On mine the 'spot' of sealant was somewhat greater than that, more like a great gob!

I resealed the lenses using ordinary B&Q silicone sealant - works perfectly well, holds it all tight and waterproof.

Be wary how you clean the lenses, rub too hard and the mirror finish goes black! a gentle wipe with damp tissue is probably going to be good enough. If you have to replace them, you'll need to realign you lights, which looks a fun job.

Oh and if you've got a 'thing' about dead bugs, there'll be bucket loads of 'em in there!

[-JUT-]

Crazy / lazy idea, but the lamp units have a drain hole at the front, right? Any reason why you couldn't take the bulb out, and spray a liberal amount of contact cleaner or something similar into the lamp unit in situ and let all the crap drain out without removing the unit? Obviously not as thorough a job but it might help if there's a lot of loose muck in your lamps...

[thenick]

Thanks all, found my arms to be to big to undo the wingnuts from the grill (although there're not that big so dont know how you guys did it?!) so went in from the inspection hatch - easy! There was a huge amount of sealant holding the cowl on however which took some persuading to remove! In the end I held the lens in with silicone sealant and shifted it around with the cowling on loosely in order to get it to fit properly and look right. Now just leaving to set but appears to be fixed!

Thanks for the info,

Nick

[900T-R]

On a similar note, before I break the headlight surrounds on changing the lights to Continental spec - a '93 should abolutely, positively, not have the two bolts as per the Bible, with them only held by copious amounts of body mastic, right?

[symonab]

900T-R said:

On a similar note, before I break the headlight surrounds on changing the lights to Continental spec - a '93 should abolutely, positively, not have the two bolts as per the Bible, with them only held by copious amounts of body mastic, right?

Wrong

Mine has the bolts and they are bloody rusty - not sure if they would undo - scary thought really.

They are really easy to see - will edit this thread in a moment once images have been uploaded for you.

http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/symo

Sy

Edited by symonab on Friday 5th January 16:12

[poorpeet]

Mine is an April 93 build & it has two bolts on the bottom section of each cowl. There is also a blob of mastic at the top.

[symonab]

Am I dum - just a thought - are these screws that I can see the headlight adjusting screws?????????

[ubernoober]

symonab said:

Am I dum - just a thought - are these screws that I can see the headlight adjusting screws?????????

looked at directly from the front, 3 if I remember. usually gobbed over with sealant