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981 Cayman headlight lens replacement

31K views 44 replies 25 participants last post by  Beancouter 
#1 ·
My 981 Cayman headlight lenses are badly pitted. I tried polishing them but the results are less than ideal due to the depth and extent of the pitting. I have been searching for used replacement headlights but is seems most that are offered are also is similar or worse condition. I cam across a website in China which offers new replacement lenses which I understand are fairly complicated to replace but understand that it is possible.

My question is, has anyone had any experience with a chinese website called "headlight-headlamp.com" ?

They quoted me $380 for both lenses delivered via USPS. They estimate delivery in about 20 days to California.
 
#6 ·
When I bought my Cayman the headlights had the delamination issue as well as pitting. With the cost of new headlights I decided to do my own repair. I started with 400 grit dry then wet sanding to removing the delaminating coating and the pitting. Then 1000 grit then 1500 grit wet sanding. I then cleared up the haze with polishing compound with my random orbital buffer. This corrected all but the deepest of a couple of the pits. I then applied Lamin-X PPF film. The film seemed to fill into the pits and visually disappeared in the daylight but are slightly visible at night time with the headlights on. I am happy with the repair and the film protects from future chips and damage.

If you decide and go ahead with the new lenses I saw a post that someone removed his lenses for new bulbs by heating them in the oven.
Jim
GT4 front :). Yes. You have to bake them to separate the butyl glue. It's a PITA. Proceed with caution if you decide to take on this project.
 
#10 ·
ICNU,
Yes, see my post #6 above, Cayman6spd said he had to bake the lights to release the glue......PITA...... He removed the lenses to upgrade the lights and paint the inside black but I imagine he had to be more careful not to crack them as he was reusing them. I am not so sure I would attempt changing them.
Jim
 
#14 ·
Hi all, first post ☺

My 981 headlights are BADLY 'crazed' with micro-cracks in the polycarbonate/UV coat so I've been looking into this for a while too. You can't see too much with lights off, but they look almost shattered with lights on. I've seen a few people who have aggressively sanded them down and recoated, but for the effort involved I wouldn't be happy with this result.

I have just ordered replacement lenses from Alibaba (Google 'TIEAUR 981 leadlamp') for $277 with Fedex Priority to UK.

Would really help if anybody has photos/walkthrough of this task already, but I can't see it anywhere.

I'm not sure yet whether I'll pull the lights off of the car for this project, I think I will buy one from Ebay for <£100 thats cracked/bad condition lens and start the project on that one first. If all goes well I'll pull the other side off the car to revamp and then sell the spare from the other side.

Since I'm pulling the lens off - I also want to black out the chrome housing - anybody have any suggestions on what paint to use for this?
 
#15 ·
I made multiple attempts to remove the lens from the housing with an old headlight assembly that I had. The most aggressive I got with the heat was at 230 degrees F in the oven for 20mins. Even with this I could NOT get the lens to release from the housing. After fiddling around for 2hrs, I finally gave up. I watched many youtube videos and it seemed liked a very easy process, but the adhesive just did not want to release. I saw a similar post on rennlist where they mentioned a shop is CA can provide this service. It sounds like they remove the lens to paint the interior. No mention as actually replacing with a new lens.
I'd love to hear more about the quality of the lens and peoples success with removing it from the housing.
Good luck!
 
#18 · (Edited)
If you search around on here and rennlist it's a highly debated topic whether or not to put film on the headlights. Some say it causes delamination. I can attest to that, as when I removed my clear bra last week the previous owner had put on the headlights it lifted a small chunk of clear coat off them :(

When talking to my tint guy that does suntek ppf he said he wont do headlights on Porsches as its not recommendation and can peel the UV coating off (as was my case)
 
#19 · (Edited)
After many months of waiting and delays I finally had the time to install the new headlights lenses for my Cayman and I'm happy to report that the results are pretty good in my opinion.

Difficult to see in this picture but the headlight on the left is the original lens which is extremely pitted. Headlight on the right ( in first picture) is the finished light after disassembling, painting a couple of inner chromed rings with semi-gloss black paint to match the GTS and GT4 lights and re-assembling with the new lens. Photo on the right is the finished headlight installed on the car.


271602
271603



Its probably difficult to appreciate in these pics but in person the light looks brand new. I doubt that these replacement lenses have any type of UV protection coating so now I'm going to look into getting them covered with Xpel or Suntek PPF to protect them from future road damage.


First step in this process was locating replacement lenses. The only place I found them back in March was a Chinese website "headlight-headlamp.com" although there seems to be a few other websites offering these lenses as mentioned in some of the posts above. I paid $380 via PayPal for both lenses including delivery. It took about 6 weeks for the day I ordered them to the day I received them at my home. The vendor supplied me with a tracking number 3 days after placing my order and then they apparently spent about 5 weeks in some type of customs warehouse in China awaiting approval to ship to U.S. Once they cleared the "Chinese customs black hole" I received them about 3 days later.

Work and other priorities kept me from tackling the project until this past weekend. I had read up and watched several youtube videos discussing how to replace headlight lenses stating that you had to heat the complete headlight in an oven at about 175 degrees etc, etc. My first step was going to be to completely remove the innards of the headlight but I soon realized that you can only remove all the inner components after removing the lens. Upon inspecting the lights in detail I realized that the lens was actually held in place by a continuos bead of RTV silicone.
Upon further investigation I found that RTV "begins" to soften at about 650 degrees F. so heating the headlight to that temperature was out of the question. I decided that I would cut and scrape out the silicone but to do that I would need to cut the outer ring of the existing headlight in order to get to the silicone so I cut the outer lip around the whole lens with my Dremel. Then I cut out as much silicone as I could with a utility knife and then dug out the remaining silicone using a screwdriver pick.
271604
271605



I spent about 2 hours digging out pieces of silicone from all around the lens until it finally started to release. Once the lens came out I cleaned out and scraped as much of the remaining silicone from the lens groove and test fit the new lens to make sure it would seat properly. I then proceeded to removed the chrome rings from inside the lights (another 1 hour hassle), painted them and reinstalled them. I filled the lens groove with new RTV silicone and reset the new lens without much problem. It took me about 6 hours to do the first light and probably an additional 3-4 hours to do the second light but in the end I'm happy with the result and feel it was worth it.
 
#30 ·
After many months of waiting and delays I finally had the time to install the new headlights lenses for my Cayman and I'm happy to report that the results are pretty good in my opinion.

Difficult to see in this picture but the headlight on the left is the original lens which is extremely pitted. Headlight on the right ( in first picture) is the finished light after disassembling, painting a couple of inner chromed rings with semi-gloss black paint to match the GTS and GT4 lights and re-assembling with the new lens. Photo on the right is the finished headlight installed on the car.


View attachment 271602 View attachment 271603


Its probably difficult to appreciate in these pics but in person the light looks brand new. I doubt that these replacement lenses have any type of UV protection coating so now I'm going to look into getting them covered with Xpel or Suntek PPF to protect them from future road damage.


First step in this process was locating replacement lenses. The only place I found them back in March was a Chinese website "headlight-headlamp.com" although there seems to be a few other websites offering these lenses as mentioned in some of the posts above. I paid $380 via PayPal for both lenses including delivery. It took about 6 weeks for the day I ordered them to the day I received them at my home. The vendor supplied me with a tracking number 3 days after placing my order and then they apparently spent about 5 weeks in some type of customs warehouse in China awaiting approval to ship to U.S. Once they cleared the "Chinese customs black hole" I received them about 3 days later.

Work and other priorities kept me from tackling the project until this past weekend. I had read up and watched several youtube videos discussing how to replace headlight lenses stating that you had to heat the complete headlight in an oven at about 175 degrees etc, etc. My first step was going to be to completely remove the innards of the headlight but I soon realized that you can only remove all the inner components after removing the lens. Upon inspecting the lights in detail I realized that the lens was actually held in place by a continuos bead of RTV silicone.
Upon further investigation I found that RTV "begins" to soften at about 650 degrees F. so heating the headlight to that temperature was out of the question. I decided that I would cut and scrape out the silicone but to do that I would need to cut the outer ring of the existing headlight in order to get to the silicone so I cut the outer lip around the whole lens with my Dremel. Then I cut out as much silicone as I could with a utility knife and then dug out the remaining silicone using a screwdriver pick.
View attachment 271604 View attachment 271605


I spent about 2 hours digging out pieces of silicone from all around the lens until it finally started to release. Once the lens came out I cleaned out and scraped as much of the remaining silicone from the lens groove and test fit the new lens to make sure it would seat properly. I then proceeded to removed the chrome rings from inside the lights (another 1 hour hassle), painted them and reinstalled them. I filled the lens groove with new RTV silicone and reset the new lens without much problem. It took me about 6 hours to do the first light and probably an additional 3-4 hours to do the second light but in the end I'm happy with the result and feel it was worth it.
What method did you use to paint the headlight housings black?
 
#21 ·
One might think of the way the windshield installers remove a windshield - which is glass set into a silicone adhesive bead. They push a piece of wire through the silicone and then pull it around to cut the silicone. I would think if you started at the narrowest point in the headlight - you might be able to saw through the silicone seal, then work the wire around.
 
#26 ·
Yes, the quality of the lens look great. The disassembly is quite a bear, but with some patience it can be done.
I completed a lens replacement on my 981 halogen assembly. Unfortunately I sold the car prior to installing the assembly, so if anyone is interested in the complete assembly (lens installed), please shoot me a message.
 
#29 ·
Has anyone tried using d-limonene solvent (orange oil, the stuff found in goof-off) to soften up and delaminate the silicone bead? That's what I use to remove RTV caulking in my bathrooms, so I wonder if it'll be helpful here. D-limonene can melt certain plastics, so I don't know if it's safe to use on the headlight housing.
 
#32 ·
My girlfriends boxster headlights were horrible. I mean the worst I’ve ever seen. And we bought the car used from a Porsche dealer. Disgusting that they sold them like this (I was not there when she picked up the car). Anyway 1000 grit sandpaper. Then 1200 1500 2000….
Then I hit them with Chemical guys headlight polish stuff and within seconds they were clear again.
I don’t know what they put in that stuff but holy crap. When I sanded with 2000 grit and it was dry you couldn’t see the insides of the light. In 1 second they were clear again. So I’ll give that stuff a thumbs up.
New-lenses would have been better. But before you go that route. Try some elbow grease.
 

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#36 ·
I had to restore the headlights on my 2009 Cayenne GTS about 2 years ago. I ended up sanding them with 3000, 1500, and 1000 grit sandpaper and then using the Sylvania headlight restoration kit. It included sandpaper, polish and a UV coating which you applied after the polishing process. To this day they still look like I did them yesterday. In my opinion it was $20 well spent.


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