430 F430 430 Scuderia Headlight Hazing / Crazing / Misting Renovation

Well I manged to get a set of 16M headlights for my car F430. I Love these lights. These are the Carbon ones with the titanium inners rather than the Chrome (this was the main reason I have been after a set, I hate Chrome) Now being the carbon ones and for those that don't know, Unlike the standard F430 headlights, these have a hard coating on the inside that causes all the problems of spider cracks, hazing, misting or whatever else you want to call them. It will be very rare if your car has escaped this problem.

You can use a heat gun and it will look better, for a week at best, and it will start to come back again and with a vengeance so in short you are just making it worse. There is other old wife's tales like using an aquarium magnet blah blah... don't waste your time. The only way to make them look like new and stay like new is remove this coating.

My Lens where not that bad (first picture and seen under light but can be more horrible with the headlights on) most people no doubt would happily run around with them, but I have OCD I think fresh looking headlights make a massive difference on taking years off your car, and I want them like new. That means splitting the headlights and its off with the lens.

360 Headlights are quite easy to split, but 430's use a different adhesive and are a sod. Its a process of heat, work on them, heat, work on them, all the while being delicate because the Lens are not German so to speak! Now I have done this before with various other cars so well versed on it, but do not think this is easy and you can quite easily break your lens, they then might as well go in the bin as you will need a new headlight.

Ill add progress as I go, Started out....

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And splitting

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Now thats the hard bit out the way, but I have blisters, broken nails and bent fingers. Its all easy from now on in, just remove the coating polish the lens like new and reseal. Ill update as I go.

 

Oven at 100 - 110. I put them in for 20 minutes (you will be putting them in and out as the plastic and adhesive cools quickly but the metal bits don't, so keep the oven going) You will need gloves, good gloves so you have feel and you will need pry tools, Trim tools and Stanley blades . You can only really start on one edge as one side of the lamp is flush and you can't get a blade or grub screwdriver in it until they are starting to come apart.

Be really careful and don't attempt this if you are unsure!

 

Indeed, I have done others before, but none have been anywhere the replacement cost of these things!

I must be mad!

Hard bit done though!

 

Mine are going off to the detailers. A guy who has a lot more patience than me, with the tools to get them perfect. I have heard that you can get a clear laquer that you can have sprayed on and that gets good results.

Anyway I just used some T-Cut to take off the coating so you can see it. The crazing comes from it failing and going tacky like, a bit like sticky buttons issues.

This is the coating scratched with my nail, its almost like a very thin layer of hard glue /tacky lacquer.

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This is a patch being removed with T-Cut. Don't look at the swirls !!

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It’s UV from the sun that does if it’s going to. If you are worried just PPF the outside like I am and voila!

 

I was not planning to, the rest of the lights and the carbon are perfect and want to keep the OEM look. I was thinking of doing something with the orange indicator and I am looking into that.

please note all the pictures I have taken are with a couple spotlights and torch, so they are showing every single mark on the lens and look at there very worst.

 

ill keep this post updated.

 

They look good, what did you use to replace the orange indicator bit John?

 

ah you bought them off him. I was tempted, I think his where hydro dipped, so not real carbon if I recall?

 

Oh nice! I never knew you could buy aftermarket Carbon inserts, thought it was OEM or nothing.

The 16m ones are matt carbon finish and I thought about lacquering them so it was a glossy carbon, but Ill keep that bit original.