2001 x5 Headlight Lenses Re-Do

[sunny5280]

Originally Posted by Russianblue

i ordered $70 worth of 3M wetordry from Amazon and a pint of spar. with what i already have at home, that will give me 220-400-600-800-1200-1500-2000.

also ordered Meguiar's m105 and M205 for polishing. still have one 3000 grit trizact disk from my 3M kit which i may use too, but the M105 is supposed to polish up 1200+.

I'm using a Makita 9227 so hopefully i won't burn straight thru the poly ; ). I'll take some before and after pictures with my Nikon and make this a good 'data point' project.

I am thinking I might try to remove the lights from the car. It's bound to make wetsanding easier. Are there any DIY's for removing the entire housing?

I would recommend doing all of the work by hand. All three vehicles I did were by hand and did not take a lot of time to do. I had originally planned to remove the lights but found it was unnecessary since I was doing the work by hand.

[bcredliner]

That's good, much easier.

This video should help. 2000-03 BMW X5 How to Remove Headlight - YouTube
On my 2002 the lower trim just pries off, no needle nose pliers need. I would try that first.

The Bentley manual instructions states--remove the air filter housing on the left side and the secondary air filter on the right to disconnect the harness. This video covers that process. How to Replace BMW X5 Headlight Bulbs - YouTube

[Russianblue]

good info. looks like a bit of a chore to remove the housings. depends how much energy i have on Saturday!

i will do the sanding by hand, which is really why i want them out. i found that last time i did this it was very difficult to sand uniformly all the way to the edges. nothing like a drenched 1/3 sheet of wetsand paper and your bare hand (or a soft rubber pad) to sand a smooth, curved surface near the edge.

the polishing/buffing? probably won't do that by hand.

[sunny5280]

Originally Posted by Russianblue

good info. looks like a bit of a chore to remove the housings. depends how much energy i have on Saturday!

i will do the sanding by hand, which is really why i want them out. i found that last time i did this it was very difficult to sand uniformly all the way to the edges. nothing like a drenched 1/3 sheet of wetsand paper and your bare hand (or a soft rubber pad) to sand a smooth, curved surface near the edge.

the polishing/buffing? probably won't do that by hand.

I thought the same thing and discovered it wasn't nearly the problem I thought it was going to be. I figured the effort to remove the lenses (which aren't that difficult to remove on my Subaru) was more than the effort to be careful while sanding.

[bcredliner]

Originally Posted by Russianblue

good info. looks like a bit of a chore to remove the housings. depends how much energy i have on Saturday!

i will do the sanding by hand, which is really why i want them out. i found that last time i did this it was very difficult to sand uniformly all the way to the edges. nothing like a drenched 1/3 sheet of wetsand paper and your bare hand (or a soft rubber pad) to sand a smooth, curved surface near the edge.

the polishing/buffing? probably won't do that by hand.

If you haven't aren't experienced buffing out plastic I would do that by hand. It's very easy to burn the plastic and doesn't take long by hand.

[Russianblue]

i will give it a go by hand. if it doesn't take too long, then i am good with that.

[Russianblue]

here ya go fellerz.

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...storation.html

[bcredliner]

Looks good!

[ProfessorX5]

Great job! Planning to do mine when I pick it up later today. Will post pics, maybe even video

[Brandon002]

Why did you use an entire kit for each light? I've done lights that bad and still had half the kit left after doing both headlights. Also, only takes about 20 minutes to do each light.

Great end result though and the 3M kit is the best out there.