How to Fix a Headlight with Water or Moisture in it

hey guys chrisfix here do your headlights look like this filled with moisture and water water is actually pooling at the bottom of these headlights well if so this video is going to show you how to fix that you're gonna find the leak and then patch the leak and prevent new water from getting in so the first thing we're gonna do is take the headlight out completely on my Mazda B 3000 Ford Ranger there are actually three clips that you need to take off to get the headlight off there's a one there there's one down there and then there's one right down there you can see how they're kind of clipped in you give use the pliers just to unclip it they actually might even just be able to pull straight out just like that this one looks like it's clipped in a little bit so all you have to do just push that down and now you should just be able to pop that right out like that got both of my clips out after we had the clips off of this post and that post down there there's one more thing we have to detach and you can kind of see it's sticking out right up there we're actually going to go underneath the truck so we're under the truck and we're looking underneath the headlight and you can see right there that's where the clip is located that we need to take off and all you do to get that clip off is pinch both ends of the clip inwards and push towards the headlight so you just get one finger on this piece right here that's sticking out and the other finger on the other side and push good now the headlight will come out now we can take the headlight pigtail off and we have our headlight so here's the clip at the bottom that was talking about that you have to press both of these in kind of push it out that's how that snaps in then with the headlight out we could see all the water that is in here and we're gonna try to find how that's getting in there we should also take out the bulb so just unscrew this and then when you're taking the bulb out don't touch the bulb lens and be careful not to break it you don't want to touch the glass glass if you touch the glass the bulb will wear out prematurely and style-- just be a waste of money so to find the leak in my headlight what I do is since there's no electronic components in here anymore that headlight bulb was taken out I fill it up with water to try to find the leak so I'll fill it up all the way once it's filled up all the way just get your paper towel dry it completely because you don't want to have any water on here so once the outside is completely dry start looking for any leaks around the edges your best bet is to first look at the seam here all the way around I'm not seeing anything yet huh just saw water okay so there's water leaking right here you can see it's coming out actually this whole top area so what I'll do I'll just get my magic marker and just lightly mark the areas so in there my vent cap is actually on you're pretty tight if you have a vent cap you might want to plug it with your finger or some tape or something I'm gonna try adding pressure to this I'm gonna just use my lips and blow in here and I'm gonna see if any water comes out over here because this is where I think the problem is when I see it I'll put my finger near it so you could see it on the camera so I'm sure you saw that there's a nice stream of water coming out right there so I found my leak so now I'll empty this so now we need to get the headlight dry on the inside so we can make repairs to seal this light to dry it you could leave the headlight out in the Sun let it evaporate or you could use a blow dryer or heat gun to make the evaporation process faster to seal the headlight we're actually going to use a vinyl adhesive caulk you could use a silicone you could use the vinyl it doesn't really matter as long as it could withstand the heat of the headlight and you could use it outdoors so it's waterproof but in order to put a bead down on this headlight we need to make sure that the headlight is completely dry so I'm gonna show you now how I'm gonna draw it so you just need a heat gun and then a box and then just put your light in the box that lens facing away from the heat gun and then you cut a hole in the box heat gun goes in like that or the hairdryer whatever you're using and that'll go on make sure you use the low setting and so the heat isn't hitting directly onto the plastic just put some type of cardboard or some insulator or something I'm actually gonna aim it up a little bit and then you just close it up it doesn't need to be tight just like that keep an eye on it you don't want the melt or anything it could get really hot in there surprisingly you also don't want to catch fire so stay near it and it should only take like five minutes all the water will evaporate out five minutes later let's take a look it's pretty hot but I could still touch it by hand and all the water is evaporated which is great so now if you go and seal this light so with this completely dry it's still a little warm to the touch which is probably better anyway for the bonding we want to clean up our surface so just get some type of degreaser spray it on clean that surface good now we'll take our caulking and just simply it up I'm gonna lie a bead right on top I'm gonna just work it right in make sure that gets in those crevices really good good now we'll let this dry we don't want to install it when it's still tacky and then when it's dry we install it so this stuff will actually dry clear if you're concerned with how it looks you want to get some type of caulking that will dry clear this is also made for outdoors it's also water resistant and heat resistant all the things you would want when you're trying to steal a headlight but this stuff it takes about 15 minutes so it's not tacky on the outside anymore it cures in about 24 hours but in 15 minutes we could put this headlight back in so let's say you tried this water trick and you didn't find a leak the water could actually be getting in from where the bulb goes you can see here's the light bulb and it has an o-ring on it to prevent water from getting in so when you put the light bulb in goes in like that and it makes a seal now if this isn't sealed completely if your old ring is damaged or if your o-ring has debris on it or whatever water could be getting in through the light bulb hole you want to look around that ol ring make sure it's not damaged make sure there's no crack so make sure there's no debris check where the mating surfaces are make sure there's nothing there don't touch the light bulb but you could touch this plastic part and this all looks good some people like putting a little dielectric grease on here I don't but if you have a headlight that's getting moisture and you can't find the leak you might want to give some dielectric grease a try on here just don't touch the light bulb don't get anywhere near the light bulb and that'll help prevent water from getting in so this is dry enough to put back in you just get your light bulb find where it clicks in that's pushed in all the way now just get this screw on cap that we took off this also helps prevent water and it keeps that light bulb nice and snug against the case here get that on there connect our light make sure it clicks good I want to make sure these pegs are straight because if they're not straight you're gonna have a hard time aligning it and you just do the reverse of the installation push it in that bottom one should snap in and it has right there now we get our clip and push the light in with our hand as we press the clip in and the clip just gets pushed in just like so all the way down kind of clicks a little bit and you can give it a pull outwards to make sure it's not coming out and that's good same goes for the other side get your clip push in with your hands so that this is pushing against the frame and then force that clip down till it clicks like that now we got our headlight securely in the lenses look good I'm sure we fix the problem because we saw where the water is leaking out in the water test and if you think about it when it rains water's gonna sit on top of here and drip down into the lens and then you're gonna get a lot of moisture in here I'm gonna wait a couple of weeks to give you guys an update and let you know if you fix the problem for now let's just turn on the light make sure it still works good and that looks a lot better than it did it was so bad at night you could barely see out of this headlight hopefully this video was helpful if it was give it a thumbs up also consider subscribing up on the screen are gonna be some videos you click on the video on the screen where you can find a link to those videos in description below also in description below are the links to the chrisfix Facebook and Twitter pages if you use Facebook or Twitter check it out so here's an update three weeks later just to show you guys that this actually worked and it worked well there's no water in here at all before we had water pooling and now there's nothing there's no moisture and this was after a couple of big rainstorms so

Channel: ChrisFix

Views: 6,569,619

Rating: 4.8174324 out of 5

Keywords: Moisture, Headlamp, moisture inside headlight, remove moisture from headlight, remove water from headlight, water in headlight, headlight with water in it, headlight condensation, headlight water removal, headlight restoration, headlamp water removal, how to remove moisture in a headlamp, how to remove water in headlight, how to fix water in headlight, headlights, how to clean headlights, how to restore headlights, clean headlights, How to Remove Condensation

Id: KNWTidkxcmQ

Length: 8min 33sec (513 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 17 2014