shoyu

i used a heat gun and after a lot of bending twisting a few cracks and 3 hours later i gave up. i mean i couldnt even get it cracked open. im gonna try to use the oven heating tommorrow. oh yeah my point heat guns suck it melted the housing before it melted the silicone.

oh yeah if anyone has any suggestions for me i would be very happy to take them thanks again cl memebers

hiyabrad

Can someone please let me know what "clearing out" the lights means? Thanks!

kylesc400

hes referring to openning up the housing for his tail lights and headlights. people usually open up the headlights by melting the silicone around the edges so they can clean it/eliminate whatever condensation has accumulated over the years. as for tail lights, especially the 95-96 lights, people like to open them up to remove some of the colored pieces of plastic to get a custom look. in the 95-96 models, you can take out the bottom colored pieces so that the top of each tail light is red, and the bottom is clear/silver.

lex400sc

The oven trick or hot water trick works well. Know that whichever method you try, it will always involve a decent amount of time, effort, and elbow grease. Expect to reheat the housings at least three times before you can pry them open fully. The adhesive Lexus uses is very, very resilient, but once you get a corner cracked open, the rest is cake. The whole housing will give in and open up. Good luck!

Grimpy

I think you put the heat gun too close... The silicone should melt very quickly, I used a heat gun and my headlights didn't melt. What kind of heat gun are you using?

shoyu

im using a cheezy heat gun from home depot that has a low and high setting.

turns out i was holding it to close but i still cant melt the silicone kinda burnt my fingers too on the hot plastic

ima try the oven trick now but ive never heard of the hot water trick though. is it as easy as it sounds

Jmai22

don't leave it in one place. move back and forth in a 6 inch area. just keep oging back and forth. once it opens move on to next area.

The Ikon

This will help from a thread (search) titled "DAMN" by The Ikon... https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...highlight=Damn

It's easy, just a lil' time consuming... BE CAREFUL WITH THE HEAT!!!!

The Ikon

SilverBolt 219

I second that, what is this hot water trick? I've never heard of it before. I plan on getting myself a pair of the 95-96 tails soon & clearing them out, so naturally I'm trying to research & find out what is the safest & most effective method. Thanks everyone and good luck shoyu!
-Johnny

shoyu

omg i did it i cleared it out jeezus!!! took forever but i did it. forget the heat gun that doesnt work do the oven trick it works so much better and no melting.!!!!!

lex400sc

Hot water trick is to submerge the headlight housing in 190-degree water for 15-20 minutes. Remove and pry. Submerge again in a fresh batch of 190-degree water. Remove and pry. Repeat until the housing opens.

retrodrive

Did that with my LSheadlights today. Easy. Preheat oven to 250 degrees, keep the whole headlight assembly for 5 minutes in the oven, Take it out and easily pull the glass from the plastic. while silicone is still hot, remove it fron the plastic piece. this will make it easier to reinstall with new silicone.