Hi all,

Has anyone successfully opened a rear tail light? (Vantage 2008)?

Any hints?

I was going to use a heat gun but the plastic looks a bit delicate

 

Yep: did mine 2 weeks ago. An easy job if you prep correctly. I advise not to use a heatgun but just a standard hairdryer. Place the light in a large cardboard box and tape the hairdryer to the box allowing it to heat-up. Leave it for 20 minutes and this will allow you to pull the lens off. No specific pull-order but make sure the tabs are open allowing the lens to come off. I did remove the permaseal and used SikaFlex 221 to reseal them.

Mines are damp free now!

 

I've baked headlights in an oven before, but not the headlights or taillights from an Aston. Worked really well on those, and you get a nice even heat so you don't have to worry quite as much.

 

Is this to get the condensation out? Because I have it in both my rears, noticed it washing the car a few days ago [it was 60*, probably it's last bath for a few months!]

 

That's right. The OEM seals on these lights is of inferior quality hence the condensation issues. You'll be surprised how easy they are to pry open (for a reason..)

 

The silica pack is the factory-recommended "solution" for the condensation issue in the headlights (there was a TSB for it). The solution for the tail lights is to drill a drain hole. and blow-dry the condensation through that hole.

AM has updated the tail lights with a better sealant, not sure about the headlights.

 

I installed a vented headlight solution https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...eadlights.html which works very well.

 

The updated ones are only different because of the sealant. Visually they're identical, which is good because you can swap one at a time rather than having to buy them by the pair.

But yeah, sticking silica packets into the headlight housings really is a woodshed engineering solution. Maybe it was done to pay homage to the old days of shoddy British engineering?

 

I said the old days!!

 

Yes I took mine out to deal with the condensation issue, but found it quite difficult and did have to resort to a heat gun. The reason though, was because the previous owner had obviously had an issue and tried to resolve also.

So It was much harder for me to remove the lenses which had been re-sealed.

Time and patience won through and I managed to remove the lenses with no damage. I dried them out and resealed leaving a small silica packet in each one. Have had no problems with condensation since (approx 8 months).