Clear Corner Clusterf***k
So, when I hit the deer I fractured my driver's side headline unit in 5 different places. Bodyshop orders a replacement unit and asks me what I want to do about matching the passengers side, where I have clear cornered and done a matte finish front bezel... they don't want to open up the OEM headlight for sealing issues and they aren't sure they can match what I did on the other side. One idea is to replace both with OEM units, which is no good for me, I really dislike the amber corner and really like the matte finish bezel I came up with.
So I tell them, no problem, I will pick up the new OEM unit modify it over the weekend to match, and drop it off monday morning.
I get the thing home and am looking forward to a little 20 minute job, these things come apart like a butter sandwich with a little heat gun application...
Nope, not anymore they don't. I discover that this new Bosch unit, manufacture date of 7/10, is put together with some kind of completely insane adhesive... like superglue mixed with acrylic caulk. No amount of heat does a damn thing to it. Nothing. I heat, I heat, I apply my best P90X gorilla muscles trying to wrench the two halves apart, nothing.
Refusing to give up, I go after it with a series of picks and small blades, and slowly, slowly begin to break the seal. Along the bottom, I actually have to deform the channel a bit with the heat gun. Crap.
After hours of work, I get the damn thing separated, do the actual mods in 10 minutes, and then begin the hours of scraping this glue from hell out of the channel that the lens sets in. I finally get it cleaned up, heat and reform the channel I had to deform along the bottom, and lay a thick bead of butyl rubber strip caulk in the channel, and re-seal it. Done, a perfect match, and I do believe I sealed it in the end. (We'll see...)
Net net, a GIANT PITA that if I weren't so freakin stubborn never would have made it through. I have a big old puncture wound in my thumb as a little extra gift from Bosch.
If I had time to source an older take-off unit, I sure would've done that. (I tried.) Consider yourselves warned, if you're trying to clear-corner a recent manufacture Bosch unit, proceed with caution. I'm sure all the original units out there are sealed with butyl, and clear cornering is a total gravy job. But these new ones, forget it. Almost un-doable.
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