How can I clean inside of dipped beam headlight lens?

[Mad Hatter]

The lens on the dipped beam of my bike is dirty on the inside (misted up, but not condensation). Does anyone know how I can clean this off?

The main beam was the same but I was able to clean it using cotton buds through the bulb hole. You can’t do this with the dipped beam because it’s a different design.

 

[Rich C]

You may discover unfortunately that its not possible but I don't know this for sure. Projector lamps in general have a habit of going cloudy due to the heat build up inside given their smaller size than a non projector type. Hella produced a 65mm projector lamp for the bus market and those went cloudy very quickly and also caused early bulb failure as the bulbs got too hot ..

 

[Mad Hatter]

Thanks for the reply Rich. I’ve got an old unit which is a spare. I’m going to try sloshing soapy water around inside it and see what happens!

 

[Posh Pete]

Thanks for the reply Rich. I’ve got an old unit which is a spare. I’m going to try sloshing soapy water around inside it and see what happens!

Have a chat with your local pharmacy. Some form of de-natured alcohol might be better?

 

[Mad Hatter]

Solved this one for myself in the end. I put the main and dipped beam units in the ultrasonic parts washer and they came up like new ��

 

[Feisty]

Solved this one for myself in the end. I put the main and dipped beam units in the ultrasonic parts washer and they came up like new ��

Top effort. I tried everything on my 1150 from rags and bent wire to cotton wool buds and every type of cleaning agent I could think of. It didn't occur to me to use the ultrasonic cleaner. What cleaning agent did you add and did it remove the greasy/smokey film off the inside of the glass?

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[Mad Hatter]

Top effort. I tried everything on my 1150 from rags and bent wire to cotton wool buds and every type of cleaning agent I could think of. It didn't occur to me to use the ultrasonic cleaner. What cleaning agent did you add and did it remove the greasy/smokey film off the inside of the glass?

Sent from my SM-N975F using Tapatalk

I just used fairy liquid and water, then I rinsed with fresh water and a splash of dishwasher rinse aid to make sure there weren’t any streaks when it dried. I put the light unit on top of a radiator for a couple of days to dry out. It came up pristine and all of the misting was gone!

 

[Santa-2512]

A word of caution,

do not use any form of chemicals other than soap and water on the reflectors of modern, headlight, tailight & indicator reflector

And do not rub to hard - you will remove the silvering

The new way to coat these reflectors is huge step forward from the old methods of silvering reflectors

The modern way is to vaporise the required elements for the silvering steps in a small pressure vessel, with the components to be silvered in a large vacuum .

The vacuum is released almost explosively the result being that vaporisied material coats the parts almost instantly

the downside for us , of the process is the silvering is microns thin.

Take a cotton bud soaked in alcohol, and rub the reflector vigorously to remove a deposit, and you will see the base material coming through

as you literally wipe the silvering off, dont ask me how i know

 

[Feisty]

Cheers thanks for the info. I was more interested in how to get the inside of the glass clean. Nothing seems to entirely remove the film I have on it.

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[Seamaster]

My 1100 headlight was contaminated with a haze on the internal silvered area and the inside of the glass lens, with the head light striped and removed from the bike an hour with warm soapy water and various long pointy implements tipped with kitchen cleaning sponges all worked to clean the inside with good effect.

1150 projector lens, I have a Hymer motor home which has projector lenses made by Hella which appear to look similar to a 1150 projector light.
I stripped and cleaned using the same technique as above - warm water and pointy sticks.