Ok guys black corner lamps are done! What a pain in the ***! I dont recommend anyone doing this, it is extremely difficult and requires lots of patience. Not to mention you have to cut the top strip of your corner lamps! I only recommend doing this if you have a set of old corner lamps! I ended up putting like 3 cracks on the first lamp that i did! However once i put the weatherstripping material back on the top of the lamp they should look pretty good plus they will be the only black corner lamps on a Saab
. I put the corners in the oven but it did not loosen up the old silicone enough for the lense to pop off, as a matter of fact the plastic will start to melt and warp before you can get that old sealant melted. So if you do decide to do this, stay away from the oven and just use the dremmel tool.
here it goes:
- take the lamps off (of course)
- cut the weatherstripping around the lights off with a box cutter or razor (u will need to glue that back on when your done) (my corners were so old the rubber was no good so i am making new weatherstripping out of rubber gasket material)
- i put the lense in the oven at 300 degrees for 8 minutes and was able to "carefully" break the seal from only the front corner of the lamp ( the side that sits parallel to the headlight)! Theres a lip that goes around the top of the lense which is about .25mm which needs to be dremmeled off! be sure to put something in the bulb sockets cuz they will warp in the oven, i used a socket the same size as the bulb hole. **Be sure not to touch the socket when it comes out of the oven you will burn your freakin fingers off!
- then i dremmeled around the lense as close to the housing as possible. Keep in mind you want to keep this cut as straight as possible and as close to the housing as possible for better results when resealing the lense.
- once the lense was cutoff i smoothed out all the edges of the lense and the housing so that it would stick really nice when resealed with the silicone. this is very time consuming and i think the most important part of the project because this will determine how good your lense reseals!
- at this point i cleaned up the inner part of the lense with goof off and took off any of the remains from the old amber reflector.
- i taped off some circles where the bulb goes so that i would have a little chrome there for reflective purposes. Painted everything else with black engine paint. Two coats of paint.
- then put a good size bead of "Auto Marine silicone sealant" (Ace Hardware $5)around the housing where the lense will go. After i place the lense back on the housing i put masking tape over the housing so that the silicone would have a nice tight seal. I let it dry overnight then took the masking tape off and reinstalled.
I have not yet installed the new gasket/weatherstripping material yet! I will do this in a couple days! This will be a nice addition and will help cover up where the lense was cut.
Like i said before this was a pretty difficult and a very time consuming project and I dont really recommend doing it but if you guys are mechanically inclined and as meticulous as me go ahead and try it!
Be careful with the oven fellas i warped one of my corners and had to use one of those welder torches to re-shape the corner lense!
I do have more pics but i have to make them smaller before i can post them!
Took about 3 hours each lense!
14-12-04
On the brightside, it does have a workshop and garage! I have neither right now!
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