Damnit, one of these days I'd like to work on/mod a NEW car

[Nacho98]

So I ordered DEPO Cobra headlights for my car, they came tonight (but not until after dark thanks to shitty UPS which I expected 100%). So I siliconed 'em up and decided I wanted to silicone my corners too because one of them fogs up badly after a wash. I debated whether or not to get new OEM corners with my new headlights but opted against it since mine are OEM Ford (my GT headlights are aftermarket OEM replacements). I figured I'd keep the car Ford where I could, so I ordered just headlights.

I went outside to take out the corners, and of course since the car is almost 14 years old all those little side clips on the electrical connectors that you have to pry apart to disconnect snapped off, no surprise there...

Then when I pushed the right corner out of the car I noticed that the lens seemed to be detached from the housing (hence the fogging), gently pull the corner out of the car and this is what I got:

Fucking A.

That's pretty much junk/non repairable in my opinion, so now I have a car with no corners and going into the weekend so even paying for the fastest shipping won't get me anything until next week.

Working on old cars gets really old, I deal with this kind of shit on my Camaro all the time too, which is 22 years old. It's always shitty brittle plastic. Though on those little pry clips it doesn't help that you pretty much need 3 hands to get them off since you need one hand just to hold the corner lens up since it's hanging out of the car.

So now I have to make a decision here, I guess I can try to use a putty knife to scrape all the black off and silicone it back together for the time being but ugh...

 

[miss2slocoupe]

wow thats shitty luck... i feel your pain though with fixing shit ALL the time. shit gets old. dont get me wrong i LOVE my car but its like the repairs never end.... hell today the transmission went out :/ ...

 

[mygreengt]

scrape the black crap off and silicone them bitches

 

[Nacho98]

Of course now I can't seem to find DEPO corners. And of course since I siliconed the headlights before this happened, I can't just order up a new set of DEPO lights/corners and return these, so I have to try and find just the corners. I found corners at CJ, but it doesn't specify a brand. They have OEM Ford ones for $105 each, but I'm not really interested in waiting 5-7 days for shipping, nor interested in paying for genuine Ford ones since my headlights aren't genuine Ford.

fuck

EDIT: ordered a set of DEPO corners off ebay for $96, but they won't be here until the 7th-13th which really sucks.

I scraped off as much of the black crap as I could and gobbed it up with silicone and put a couple C-clamps on to hold it together, but I don't know if it will work...I'm hoping it does so I can at least throw it back in the car so I can drive it for now.

DOUBLE EDIT: The silicone seems to have worked, so I just put the car back together so I'm good until the new corners come...fuck this, I'm going to let a body shop put in the new headlights. $30 or whatever is worth it to let someone else do it in the cold and let them worry about shitty brittle plastic.

 

[auto_x5.0]

I hate UPS, they really dont handle with care, that shit pisses me off. But what can you do, when I bought my tailpipes from CJP the tips were sticking out of the box and I had to buff out the marks and minor scratches due to shitty shipping

 

[Nacho98]

What? UPS didn't damage anything, those were my OEM corners which fell apart when taking them off the car.

 

[g36 monkey]

His complaint wasn't so much about UPS as it was the old car lol.

That silicone will work fine, I know how serious you are with a buffer, I would have taken the opportunity of them being open to clean em up real well, then seal back up. Epoxy it if you think its necessary though I think RTV done the way you say you did it would work.

Either way, those new headlights....so sexy.

 

[1997GT4.6]

latemodelrestoration has the clear corners by themselves if you are interested. I think they are depo as well.

 

[Nacho98]

Thanks, I already ordered OEM DEPO corners, just won't be here for a week+ which sucks. I went outside this morning and gave a little tug on that corner, it seems to be sealed up alright for now until the new corners come in.

I also emailed a local body shop about swapping in the new headlights and they came back with a price of $150 because they want to take the front bumper cover off, wtf. So I emailed back and said there's no need to take the cover off based on all online write-ups I've seen and that it should be a pretty straightforward half hour job. I asked if there was any way they could/would do it without removing the bumper cover, so we will see what they say. As it is I'm already out $250 for aftermarket lights, not going to turn this into a $400 ordeal...if they're going to take the bumper cover off, then they may as well buzz it down and spray it since I have a decent amount of rock chips on the cover.

 

[Nacho98]

Well I got one headlight in, couldn't get the other one out and it was getting cold...shit's a pain in the ass to get out.

 

[g36 monkey]

So glad I don't have an sn95 for that reason lol. headlights are so easy on new edges. good luck man, they're gonna look beautiful

 

[Nacho98]

I'm going to just let the body shop do it, they mailed me back again and said they had to drop the bumper on a recent Stang but they'll take a look at mine and go from there...so I'm just gonna go down there tomorrow morning and be like here you guys can finish it up. I got the one in, but it's gotta be adjusted blah blah.

I have a suspicion that the reason they want to drop the bumper cover is to get at the adjustment screw on the inner edge of the headlights...once the headlights are in there doesn't appear to be any access to it...not sure though.

 

[ttocs]

I have no idea why you are having problems pulling the lights out, nor why a body shop would drop a bumper to install them?

 

[Nacho98]

It's hard to pinch those two black things on the back of the headlight and get them compressed to get them through the hole when you pull the headlight out. If I pinch them with a pliers/vice grips, then the sides that aren't pinched bow out, then it won't go through the hole. If I use a screwdriver on one side, then I still have the other side needing to be squeezed. It's pretty hard to get it pinched just right so that it can squeeze back through that hole. Not sure how I actually got the first one out tbh.

 

[ivan12]

I've used a set of small needle nose pliers, a couple of flat head screwdrivers, a helping hand and a few cuss words and they've come right off.

 

[Nacho98]

Yeah it would definitely be easier with two people, one to pinch and one to pull...kinda difficult to do it all at the same time and still be careful not to end up scratching the piss out of the bumper when the headlight comes yanking out. I dunno, gonna hit the body shop right away when they open at 9 tomorrow and see what they say.

 

[ttocs]

once the metal clip that holds them in place is removed, all you need to do is pull them forward. There is no need to use pliers on the clips, this is the way they were designed to work....

 

[Nacho98]

Nah, those two little clips have to be pinched, you can't just pull the lights out without pinching those, that's how they stay in place.

 

[LilRoush]

I don't think I've ever had issues with yanking / swapping lights. Sucks you are having bad luck.
Glad you sealed the stock corners back together. I was gonna say, I've pulled stock lens and resealed several times on my Mustangs. It was a cheap/free way to remove the amber reflectors and get "clear corners" on 87-93 fox bodies.

 

[Nacho98]

Yeah I took it to a different shop this morning, they said they'd take care of it and IF they have to loosen the bumper it'll be 100 bucks, otherwise 75...I'll take it, just have to drive around with two different lights until Wednesday. I probably shouldn't have messed with it at all and just set up an appointment from the beginning instead of fucking with it at all since in the back of my mind I knew I wouldn't be happy with any self-aiming job I would've done. Oh well. It would be nice to have my new corners by then too but that won't happen.