submitted by Sound Xtreme
I am going to explain this to the best of my ability, maybe someone like silent can post another topic showing how he does it if he wants. But here goes.
Actually starting out was a lot easier than I thought. It only took me about 5 hours to do both assemblies. However if you are unexperienced in these sort of things BE CAREFUL, headlights are not cheap! Even if you go to a junkyard to get them.
Here are the stages I have come up with:
1. Prep
2. Disassembling of headlight
3. Disassembling of inner headlight
4. Taking out the orange corner piece
5. Cleaning out/off the old silicone
6. Polish
Here are the tools/items that I used during this. Utility knife, pocket knife, flat head screw driver, small flat head screw driver, silicone(I used clear, though any color should do), and a hair dyer/heat gun.
First things first. Heat up the silicone that is keeping the clear and grey parts of your headlight with either a hair dryer or heat gun. The hair dryer pictured above worked great for me.
Next use a utility or exacto knife to make a cut in some of the old silicone that you will be removing later. After you go all the way around it and keep applying heat you should be able to start wigglying it. Just keep wigglying it around until you get it apart, mine came farely easily at this part. A flat head screwdriver can also be used to pry the pieces apart. This is exactly one of the easy parts, the next step I thought was harder.
Thirdly you are going to start taking apart the inner assembly(the chrome piece that is glued inside the clear piece. This part IS a quite a bit more challenging and the chrome piece is kind of fagile so be CAREFUL. First heat up the chrome piece that is connected to the clear part(this is pictured below and is marked with a red dot). I also suggest doing the one all the way in the corner last(the piece is curved).
Once the part is well heated and I do mean well(almost too hot to touch) take any knife you feel sure about yourself with(I used a regular pocket knife and went up from underneath, this seemed extremely useful here each one gave away easily)
Here is a picture of the last piece to take apart. I just got it really hot and kept wigglying it back and forth, it should eventually start giving away and will just kind of bend right out. HOWEVER, be EXTREMELY CAREFUL here this part is extremely fragile here and very well COULD break off.
Here is a picture of the three pieces you should have after seperating silicone attached pieces.
Next you need to take off the orange reflector piece. This is probably the easiest step in here. It just snaps in there so pull up where pictured below and it will come out with a little force.
Pic of the chrome piece without the orange reflector.
Then you need to start taking out/off some of the old silicone. I took most of it off but it shouldn't hurt anything if you leave some behind as long as you use a silicone that can be used to bond to another silicone. I suggest heating up the old silicone and then taking a small screw driver and run in the grove of the grey piece. For taking off the silicone off of the clear piece(not pictured) I just ran my utilty knife along the outside of it.
After you have that all cleaned out it is a good idea to clean all of the chrome and clear pieces clean of dust and finger prints. I used a dry terry cloth for this.
Second to last you need to reassemble the chrome and clear pieces back together. I used silicone for this but I think super glue would have been better(i am not sure about this but I think so). Make sure you let it dry for a little while before going on to the next step.(NO picture)
Finally place a good size bead of silicone in the groove of the grey piece (don't worry if you think you put too much, better safe than sorry, it will clean off with a paper towel). After you have your bead placed all around take your other piece(the chrome and clear pieces together) and place it on top of the grey piece. Push down with some force to give a tight snug seal(some silicone may and probably should sqeeze out, just wipe it up with a paper towel). (NO picture)
And there you have it CLEAR CORNERS! I hope this helps some of you out there. I hope so considering I had to type all of that with one hand!
submitted by Silent Alero.
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But from experince doing this in alot of alero's you might wanna take this into consideration, your headlight from the way it sounds came apart relitivly easy, meaning you had a harder compound of the rubber cement they put in, not all cars have that, some are a biotch to rip apart, and some are easy. just figured id point it out, but aside from that, nice job!!
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additional info by Sound Xtreme
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Definetly take out the old silicone and replace with new silicone. I would not trust the old after taking it apart one bit. You will discover that you will have many leaks and moisture will end up in your lights. I actually have some in mine because I have strobes in mine and they don't make a tight seal so I am going to slap some silicone on those after I get the moisture out. But do not use the original silicone, that's for sure.
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how to remove headlight by Silent Alero
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all you have to do sonic is first, you will need to pull 2 clips that are holding the lights in, (unless you have a 99, In the 99 alero's they have a black cover over them, just pull the platic pins out then follow these instructions)you have to pull those 2 up but not all the way up, you will fell it fall into place, then pull your headlight out a little.
Pull out your turn signal and parking light(self explanitory, twist them about 1/2 a turn) then your headlight should come out most the way, just look at the middle of the car, or the ineer side of the headlight to the middle of the car, and pull the harness plug off, and thats it.
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