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I bought brand new H4 headlights from Porsche a few years ago. This is what they look like after exposure to the Florida sun for 2 years:
This is not simply a coating or film on the inside of the lenses but a degradation of the lens itself. I tried straight ammonia applied to the inside of the lamps and even soaked a small square of microfiber cloth in ammonia and manually wiped the inside using a flexible parts grabber to hold the cloth while I applied pressure. Nothing touched the fogged areas. But I did see that so long as the inside was wet with water or ammonia, the lenses were perfect clear. It looks like I will need to spray the inside of the lenses with some kind of clear coating, but what to use?
Has anyone treated a similar condition in their lenses and how did you fix them?
I haven't reached out to Roger yet to see if he has these lenses in stock, the last I saw was he had H5 lenses but I'm nor sure they are the same.
Edit...never mind I see it's on the outside. That's some serious degradation...glass shouldn't do that. wow
Could it be calcium deposits (hard water)? If so, try some vinegar or CLR.
I've used dry rice as an abrasive mixed with the vinegar, swish it around to "scrub" it?
Good luck, worth saving if you can.
Edit...never mind I see it's on the outside. That's some serious degradation...glass shouldn't do that. wow
Could it be calcium deposits (hard water)? If so, try some vinegar or CLR.
I've used dry rice as an abrasive mixed with the vinegar, swish it around to "scrub" it?
Good luck, worth saving if you can.
It's in the inside of the lens, not the outside, that's what has me baffled. I tried straight ammonia, ammonia with crushed walnut shell and with rice. As I said nothing touches it, even direct pressure with a soaked swab on a flexible wand.
These lights had, at most, 1 hour of burn time. I installed LEDs with Ed Scherer's bulb holders and probably drove no more than 50 miles at night using the lights. Whatever clouded the lenses had to have been the Florida sun. I just can't see Porsche producing these crappy lights, but there it is. I ordered them from a dealership and had to wait about 3 months for Porsche to do another run of the lights. They came from the Porsche dealer in Porsche packaging so I know they are not repops from China.
What kind of clearcoat will stand up to the heat do, you think? Is there a ceramic like folks use to coat the paint finish? If I have to bake these open, I only want to do it once.
I’ve never had this issue but I have read about it. There are some pretty strange solutions out there but one of the simplest is a Brillo Pad, dishwasher soap, and water. Gently scrub it all off, carefully so you don’t break off the silver ring.
I don’t think that it’s a failed coating. It seems to me to be junk getting in there, through failed seals, then evaporating up and hardening on the lense.
Thats looks like something that was part of the bulb...vaporized and attached itself to the glass. Did a bulb fail within this time?
As I mentioned, I had LEDs in there with no more than an hour burn time. It is possible something transferred from the bulbs to the glass but I would think it never got hot enough to actually deposit something or etch the glass lens (or plastic, more likely). The bulbs are not discolored in any way. I would expect to see something on the bulb if it boiled off onto the lenses. A mystery to me.
Were the photos in the original post after you tried to clean them? Because the cloudiness doesn't seem uniform. It looks like maybe you did make some progress eliminating it in some areas.
What's the full history on these? Were they running halogen bulbs for two years? With the original factory seals?
I didn't think cloudiness came from the sun; I thought it came from contaminants in the air. Perhaps something outgassing inside the sealed area.
If you were running the factory sealing caps for a couple of years, I'd also wonder if there's something wrong with the membrane vents in the factory caps (crummy, damaged, or missing).
Last edited by Ed Scherer; 08-02-2021 at 06:52 PM.
Interesting...guessing moisture that got in and left the deposits..I don't think ammonia will dissolve calcium deposits. Try some straight vinegar and let it sit...or go stronger with CLR and rinse with distilled water.
Originally Posted by jschiller
It's in the inside of the lens, not the outside, that's what has me baffled. I tried straight ammonia, ammonia with crushed walnut shell and with rice. As I said nothing touches it, even direct pressure with a soaked swab on a flexible wand.
These lights had, at most, 1 hour of burn time. I installed LEDs with Ed Scherer's bulb holders and probably drove no more than 50 miles at night using the lights. Whatever clouded the lenses had to have been the Florida sun. I just can't see Porsche producing these crappy lights, but there it is. I ordered them from a dealership and had to wait about 3 months for Porsche to do another run of the lights. They came from the Porsche dealer in Porsche packaging so I know they are not repops from China.
What kind of clearcoat will stand up to the heat do, you think? Is there a ceramic like folks use to coat the paint finish? If I have to bake these open, I only want to do it once.
I remember seeing advice on being very careful about the reflectors, though, so just make sure you don't do anything that can damage them. I don't know what the reflective coating is; I hope it can't be stripped by any of the chemicals we're discussing.
Interesting...guessing moisture that got in and left the deposits..I don't think ammonia will dissolve calcium deposits. Try some straight vinegar and let it sit...or go stronger with CLR and rinse with distilled water.
If you have a bottle of CLR you can try, but I’ve read that it has no affect on this.
Were the photos in the original post after you tried to clean them? Because the cloudiness doesn't seem uniform. It looks like maybe you did make some progress eliminating it in some areas.
What's the full history on these? Were they running halogen bulbs for two years? With the original factory seals?
I didn't think cloudiness came from the sun; I thought it came from contaminants in the air. Perhaps something outgassing inside the sealed area.
If you were running the factory sealing caps for a couple of years, I'd also wonder if there's something wrong with the membrane vents in the factory caps (crummy, damaged, or missing).
I cleaned one, the other is untouched. The one I cleaned was not improved at all.
The lights were brand new from Porsche. They were never used with the original bulbs. When I got them I disassembled them and put your lens mounts on straight away and a set of LEDs mentioned in your writeup. I hooked them up, tested them at night by driving a few miles to check the alignment and then they sat. I experienced a short in the hazard warning system right after that that required removing the dash so I took the opportunity to completely redo the interior while the dash was out. I'm doing the carpets now so I thought I'd try cleaning the lenses which have gotten progressively worse while just sitting in the driveway. Things being what they are, it has taken me about 2 years to get to this point but the lights were noticeably fogged in about the first 6 months. They have gotten progressively worse and the car has not moved an inch in that time.
I was rather careful with the ammonia, I swished it around with the glass down and immediately rinsed with water and hot air dried the inside so I think the reflectors are OK.
could it be something was on the LED's and "burned off" and reacted with the heat/sunlight? getting progressively worse sounds like something was released into the air inside the lens area. Can you tell if the reflectors themselves have anything on them that resembles any kind of deposit?
The reflectors are bright and shiny. When the inside of the lens is wet, the glass(?) is perfectly clear and the reflectors are pristine. The LEDs have no deposit on them, nor are they oily as if something baked out of then. I won't know the full story until I try to bake the lenses off and I have to get new sealant before I try that next step. Whatever fogged the lenses does not seem to be a coating si I will have to try to polish it off or reseal the inside with a clear coat of something.
I can't comment on the root cause of the fogginess, but I feel like I can comment on what the fogginess is, if that makes sense. When there's a degradation of the surface any light that passes through is scattered somewhat. This small amount of scattering is what you are seeing when you talk about fogginess. For lights, this typically manifests itself from UV/O2/Ozone degradation of plastic lenses. The plastic itself gets oxidized and very tiny cracks form on the surface. These cracks are what is causing the scatter in transmitted light. This is why glass lenses don't degrade that way: they are already a fully oxidized material, silicon oxide, which doesn't react in the way that plastic does. Surface degradation may come from other causes, which you allude to (correctly, in my opinion, as a potential root cause), as deposition from something internal to the housing. Typically, you'd be able to wipe those deposits off, so it's a little bit of a mystery as to why that's not happening.
As to why the lenses look clear when you get them wet, it's because you're filling in those cracks with a liquid and decreasing the overall scatter. If these are glass lenses, which it sounds like they should be, I don't understand what the heck is going on. Glass is pretty impervious stuff and, unless the LEDs are releasing fluoride compounds, there's not a ton of things in normal use that will etch the surface.
For the fix, I'm not sure that Cerakote will fill the cracks to the extent that you might need. It's a pretty thin, conformal material. I think that if you can figure out how to fix the cloudiness it would be a great sealant, but I'm less sure that it will gap fill to the extent that you're looking for. I've only really seen it used in spray applications, like for cam and intake coating, so it's not so clear to me how well it would react if it can't self level on a surface and it being used to gap fill. It's probably OK, through, and not a bad idea at all.
A product that I haven't tried but which looks promising to me for other applications is Capt. Tolley's creeping crack cure (no affiliation, just keeping it in mind for the "toolbox"), which might also be useful for this problem.
08-02-2021, 05:56 PM
What will defog these H4 headlights?
