That cloud of smoke is from the fumes of the glue. I think it is stained or somehow embedded in the plastic so I don't think it can be cleaned out.I think the only way to fix them is to replace them.

 

I'm always coming up with half-a**ed ideas, so I was messing around with the assemblies. One thing that kinda worked: I taped a cotton ball to the end of a length of coat hanger, bent the hanger a bit, then stuck it in through the headlight hole. I was able to wipe some of the inside this way. The filmy stuff wipes right off, so it's too bad there's not an easy way to separate the assembly. If you could get to the entire inside surface easily, I think they would clean up like new. The section where the side marker light is I was able to use a rag and a long screwdriver on to get nearly all the film off, but the main section is much more difficult due to that cup thingy that covers the headlight bulb when it's in place.

I'm open to any other ideas anyone may have!

Jack

 

I'm not familiar with the design of the lenses but it seems that since the film wipes off easily it might also be removed with an abrasive in a solution. Something I heard during a lecture in college might also work here. An alumni that worked with Proctor & Gamble was given a task of finding a better way to clean the piping that transported food around the plant. They used chemicals that would scrub the inside walls of the pipes and then had to rinse the pipes to get the chemicals out of them. It was costly and caused a lot of down time for the equipement. I won't tell what gave him this idea because some of you may have just eaten. He found that by forcing water containing crushed icethrough the pipes cleaned them completely. The solidity of the ice scrubbed the debris from the inside. This also meant there was no major cleanup operation and the down time of the equipement was greatly reduced along with the cost from not havine to purchase the chemicals. Maybe filling the lenses halfway with mixture of a little soap, water and allot of crushed ice and then aggitating them thoroughly will remove the film on the inside. Then just rinse them out and let them air dry or blow hot air into them with a blow drier. Just a thought and I appologize for the long winded post.

 

Thanks for the idea, Michael. I was thinking of things along this line, too. My main concerns would be the possibility of the ice scratching the plastic surface, and leaving water spots behind that could not be easily removed.

Another idea I tried was to put several cotton balls into the assembly and shaking it around. This did absolutely nothing, proly cause you need to put on a little pressure. One thing I can tell ya to NOT do: use compressed air to blow cotton balls around inside. This quickly blew apart the cotton, and I spent about 15 minutes getting all the little bits of cotton out!

Jack

 

After the ice process rinse them good with distilled water. It won't leave and spots after drying.