So to just share my experience with everyone here.... Note I easily saw this possibly happening but thought it wouldn't happen to me.

So the story goes like this.

Picked up the methanol and seal kits to try and clean out the inside of the headlights.

Just so all was smooth in removal I removed the front bumper and all the underbody plastics.

Once all was off I got the headlights in my hands. Did the whole process as the "Sticky" said on here. Put the methanol in swished it around and did it few times for each. Headlights didn't look any cleaner but I just went on with putting it all back together.

THIS IS WHERE I WENT WRONG.

Wanting to make sure I got all the connections back together right and that the headlights worked I put the headlights back on the car and turned on the lights.

AND LEFT THEM !!ON!!

Then while assembling everything back together I got to the last bolt of the body pan underneath. I started tightening down and what sound like a GUN SHOT went off and my ears were ringing for a sec.

Thinking at first what the hell did I tighten down so tight to do that. (Obviously wrong)

But then I heard sizzling.... (wtf is that I am thinking)

Getting out from underneath the car I'm looking around and see what I had done.

The methanol that was left over inside that had not evaporated yet had let off enough gas to then heat up so much inside with the new seals that it blew out the bottom side of the passenger side headlight!

Would not have noticed that part though if it wasn't for the 2 to 3 inch flame inside the headlight housing. Panicking on what to do I just started blowing on the headlight to try and put it out. This is where the broken housing helped in the end. The crack and bottom blow out let my breath get by and put out the flame.

So to anyone ever looking to do this just take your time and do not try and speed up the process with turning on your headlights... (obviously hindsight it was a very stupid choice and could have burned the whole car but just happy it wasn't worse)

I may have done the whole process completely wrong but hey its a great story in the end

And now had to order new headlights.. so that turned into a completely way more expensive process.

Hope everyone enjoys my fail of the day!

 

OUCH!!! Hard lesson to learn. Thanks for sharing though.

 

Oh s&*^t!

I could have warned you, I suppose, but OMG.

 

Did you read Max's sticky real good ?
he said :
https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...-assembly.html

 

More of skimmed and went outside to do it...... obviously looking back I did not do it as told.

Oh well too late now. Can't help but blame myself.

 

Pics of the damage? On the plus side, you will still end up with nice headlights.

 

Wow, I'm very sorry to hear about that. An expensive lesson learned, but it certainly could have been worse if the fire spread.

I have a related lesson learned. Last weekend I cleaned the inside of the driver side headlight on my coupe with methanol. I worked outside and had rubber gloves, protective glasses, towels to lay the headlight on and to catch spills, and I also had the hair dryer to use. When I poured the methanol in I started to swish it around the lens. I wanted to see how that was going, so I held it up over my head. The methanol swished out the parking light access hole down and down the side of my head and onto my shirt. I wiped that off and quickly poured out the methanol, dried the lens with the hair dryer, and then went and took a long shower to get it off my skin before returning to finish the job. I was pleased with how well the methanol cleaned the inside of the lens. The weekend before I had sanded and polished the outside of the lens. It was significantly better and usable, but it still had a very slight fog look to it. Helpful hint if raising the headlight above your head while cleaning this way keep your index finger in the parking lamp hole to plug it.

 

I have this mental picture of 3 monkeys and a football......

 

I am a new owner of a 2005 Crossfire. When I purchased it the driver's side headlight had a lot of condensation in it. I have read this thread and another and plan on trying the solution described. In order to work on the headlight easier I want to remove it. How difficult is it to remove the headlight and does and one have instructions on how to remove the headlight?

 

Look at a headlight on Ebay and note the 4 mounting points.. two of these are obvious when you open the hood.. you can reach down behind it to get that one loose there.. pop out the side marker and you can access the last one. Loosen the bumper cover where it attaches at the top by the grille. I slide a micro cloth under the light.. and with a little pressure down on the bumper cover you can get it out.

 

Where did where did you buy the methanol?

 

Sure you didn't use "Moonshine" instead of methanol?

 

It's two years later and he has probably forgot where he purchased the methanol.

 

Duda's Methanol 99+% 950 ml through Amazon.