clear headlight covers!

[Sam Baker]

for you guys who are doing or are planning to do projector headlights, you DONT have to sand the covers down (sorry JDM ).. i found them at Autozone.com (practically the only place that has them) and u can get clear or smoked black ones for around $45! not a bad deal and perfect for projector retrofits! i'll post up some pix when they come :p

[papa roached]

they go over your stock covers, they arent replacements

[Sam Baker]

i know but i can use them as replacements i just wonder how strong they are, and if they'll fit well.. gotta wait and see! i just really dont wanna sand my stock lenses

[mx3man83]

It will not fit right without the stock plastic lens on there as well. I had a pair. They suck.

[Taras]

SAm Baker,

If they are the same as old GTS covers, then yes you could experiment with using them as your outer covers. You migh wish to cut out the shape of that cover on your stock lenses and repalce it with a clear cover from autozone. I am sure come clear glue will work, may be some special for polycarbonate. However, as covers themselves are probably pretty flimsy and will scratch themselves by you just looking at them you might want to get some headlight protective film from xpel.com that will strenghen it and protect it from scratches and chips. Sorry I have not experimented with them at all not have seen many pictures of them either, thought about it though, but you can try and may be report your result back to us.

[thebox]

sounds interesting, if this works i may just have to try it... let us know what happens!

[Sam Baker]

Originally posted by JDM:
However, as covers themselves are probably pretty flimsy and will scratch themselves by you just looking at them

LOL

[MX3-Freak]

This was taken from http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/hl-front-lenses.htm


How can textured plastic front lens be made clear?

Plastic front lens can be made clear. There is a few alternatives:
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• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">SANDING: Process is very tideous, so u might want to concentrate on a specific area. If you are planning to mount a projector unit behind a textured lens, you can get away with just making a circlular area clear. A textured lens is textured only on the inside, so lens has to be removed first from headlamp assembly - which is described above. The process is pretty much to start carving with something very rough first. Rough in this sense could be a dremel with round carving bit (see Tools and Materials page) at low speed. Go through the entire range of sandpaper 80 - 5000. End up with using only plastic polishing compund on a buffing wheel. Plastic will cook if it gets too hot, so you have to go easy - operate machinery on low speeds. If plastic starts cooking, you have to start over with a new headlamp, so its a good idea to practice on an old one first. A way to keep lens cool is constantly moving to new area, maybe even using ice cold water. Keep front lens from getting scratch up on the outside by covering it totally in 3M green painters tape and constanstly make sure it stays on. It is not water proof, so it has to be changed from time to time. Usage of vinyl sheet insead of tape can prove itself to have too powerful adehiesive on the back and will ruin the front of lense. If you are afraid that UV rays may ruin the plastic lens, u can paint inside with UV resistant clear paint - See Tools and Materials page.</font></li>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">FILL IN THE TEXTURE: Simply fill in the texture. Imagine simply pouring some clear "soup" onto all tecture, and wholla... next day.. clear lenses. If lens is bowed, fill in multiple sections. The "soup" would bean an optical grade adhesive. Herman have not found a retailer that carries this, but there should be: http://search.yahoo.com/search/ca?p=optical+grade+adhesives All lumileds products uses optical grade epoxy, so this can be a very good lead guys!!!!</font></li>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">REPLACE PORTION OF LENS: Cut out the area where you want to make clear and replace with a piece of optical grade polycarbonate (See Tools and Materials page). This is quite tideous as well and the final estetics may not be the best unless you replace entire front lens, which is normally not feasable: polycarbonate sheets cannot be bent to look like bowed front lens.</font></li>

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<small>[ May 29, 2004, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: MX3-Freak ]</small>

[Sam Baker]

wow! that was hella informative!! thnx mx3 freak

[mx3frik]

I got a set of the clear covers I was going to transplant over to the stock lens for my project. Keep in mind those covers are acrylic and the stock ones are lexan; in winters when the ambient temperature goes from -30oC to operating temperature as the HID's warm up will cause a mis/match at the joint (acrylic expands twice as much as lexan per degree F).

One solution I found is Devcon Plastic Welder or any other solvent based plastic adhesive. When solvent-type adhesion is used there substrate will be dissoved then cured and at the joint there will be intermixing of the materials giving it a gradual change in the composition and thus sustains less stress in extreme temperature change.

Also acrylic is ~3 times less dense than lexan like the stock ones and the covers are a lot thinner so strengh might be an issue. JDM suggested xpel sheets to me eaier I think I'll give this option a chance.

Don't forget sealing

Cheers, we'll let the thread know how things went.

Eugene

[mx3frik]

A quick update on my progress with the transplant.

With my clumsiness I didn't dare to try to cut the GTS and the stock one the exact same size and do a perfect-drop-in transplant.....instead I have overlapping parts on the stock lens and just glued the slightly trimmed GTS cover on...it's drying as we speak. My plan is to cover the glued part with vinyl sticker after and try and blend it in with the stock black trim.

Another draw back is that the lens will be ~1" or so away from a hella FF50 which I could feel the heat even on the other side of the stock lens...I'll have to do a temperature test before the project is final.

A visual on the progress:

<img src="http://members.rogers.com/aishi/clearle ... plant1.jpg" alt=" - " />


Eugene

[Taras]

Eugene, you are a crazy dude. YOu should feel the heat from my H9's...

[mx3frik]

That reminds me, have you taken any pics of your 90mm's? Wanna see.. I'm still jealous of your sanding results...I spent 50 hours just to find them ineffective. Got a bit impatient I did.

For other people who are curious, this is what I meant by bad sanding and made me persuit the GTS light covers route.

Projector beam without , way closer than 25, and beam with the sanded lens on. Notice the discolouration in the beam, the ghost 2nd cut off and the leakage above cut off....nothing's retained!

Eugene

<small>[ June 02, 2004, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: Eugene H. ]</small>

[Taras]

Eugene, the key to having a good beam through a sanded lens is to determine at what angle the light hits the lens. Our lenses are very curvy in every direction and thus the straighter the front lens, the less distortion you will experience. A lot of guys from the forum have noticed it as well. They are more concerned with loss of prism colour. The other thing to keep in mind is how far the projector sits away from the front lens. Look at OEM, it always within an inch or so, but not closer. I found that those two made a bit of difference, but not that I still retain prism colour and do not have blurrier cut-off. Can't expect much from 12yrs old lenses. Sometimes I wish I had sanded brand new ones...

As far as H9's are concerned, I have almost finished them mounting. I have finally resolved my testing issue on where to test my lights. Living room is a good place. Just a pain to always haul a battery out of the car. I'll keep you updated. I have a few crazy ideas in my head that I want to try before I finally finish the thing. That's what takes me so long, plus the time. Just run out of JB weld Seems like these healights will be 30% made out of that stuff.

[Sam Baker]

OMG eugene ur a bada$$!! LOL here are mine so far..