davisriley

Does anyone have any idea where to get the retaining clips on the headlight frame end of the adjusters? They are the black plastic ones. I managed to break 2 when I cleaned my headlight projectors, and while I thought that they were made of plastic, dealer says they are made of unobtanium. Thanks.

The Librarian

E-P-O-X-Y

davisriley

Tried. No luck, does not hold. Anyone have any broken headlights from an accident?

3fordasho

common problem. I've used silicon to re-attach and it seems to be working so far. Might be a little easier to disassemble if required in the future (vs epoxy). Also to prevent breaking the remaining ones I now warm up the clips with a heat gun before carefully prying on that little clip.

3fordasho

if you try to glue the little clip back on you are correct it will never hold. I applied the silicon into the hole in the headlight frame that the black clip slides into.

davisriley

I'll give it a shot. thanks.

Mike Atkisson

I have a spare Euro light I brought back from Germany a few years ago. I already used the lense on my car to replace a badly pitted one, but I may have the piece you are looking for.

chefbob

<center><img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/84147/headlight.jpg.jpg"></center><p>

|skolnick

JB WELD

Ellisd

When I pulled my headlamps apart last month I ended up breaking two clips taking the headlamps apart, and one more putting them back together again. Only after appealing to the S-car world for sources of these clips did I find out that heating the clips first makes all the difference.

After much calling Audi and Hella, I did confirm that these clips are in fact genuine German unobtainium.

Since I only had problems with the upper clips, I theorize that they become more brittle due to higher temperatures in the top of the sealed housing. Strangely enough the bottom clips in each housing were slightly different from left to right assemblies, with one made of white plastic and one black plastic.

I tried various epoxies, and in the end was successful with one clip using JBWeld to glue the broken tab back onto the clip, but in the other two cases that didn't work. So I ended up creating two-half molds out of modeling clay using the broken clips as a model, and then filled each half-mold with JB-Weld and then glued the two halves together once dry. This method worked quite well, but was a real pain in the a$$ and took several tries to get right. Basically the fabricate-your-own-part method. Now before you try this, I did later find a *much* easier solution.

To avoid the whole tab-breaking-off-clip problem in the future, I discovered that the clips can be left alone and remain attached to the reflector assembly by prying the clip off the ball on the end of the adjuster screw. This can be accomplished by using the headlamp aiming screws and adjusting the screws to force the headlamp to protrude as far as possible out of the assembly. The clips may then be carefully pried off the ball on the end of the adjustment screws quite easily (though they are fitted on really quite tightly).

To make this easier next time, I used a dremel to make the ***** slightly smaller, so the clips could pop on and off them more easily, but were still tight enough to hold the headlamps together firmly. This should avoid any problems with the tabs breaking off the clips ever again.

I could have just glued the broken clips into the holes on the back of the reflector assembly had I figured that out sooner, but then I wouldn't of had the *fun* of wasting all those hours trying to make my own clips out of epoxy.

Of course the whole downside to this method is that you have to totally re-aim your headlamps after reassembly, but them you probably should do that after reinstallation anyways.

Let me know if you've any questions.

Good luck!
-Dave