working on the headlights I took them out to do a refresh since I have the bumper off and the wiring is way worse than I would have expected. Since this is a play toy project I figure what the hell and am going to try and split the lens to get access to everything. questions I have
1. Are the lenses/ headlights the same between S8 and A8 with just different internals for the LED versus standard? (In case I screw up)
2. Anyone heard of a company making a pre built harness or am I building one from scratch?

Now for the fun part since I have them apart..
The car is black with black interior I was thinking of updating since I need to have body work done what is group think of going triple black and doing a chrome delete including headlights? Car is a 2009 S8

 

I believe your car has the full grill ? The bonnet grill slightly overlaps/covers a small portion of the headlights. These are the lenses that are usually being sold all over the place.

There is a post in audiworld where a guy upgraded his HID lights. To separate the lens from the housing is not as easy as you may think. This guy used his oven to help him pry the lens from the housing.

You need to think of the rewiring and the lens replacement as 2 different jobs.

I did some rewiring a while back, man it is not easy. There is a learning curve to de-pinning.

You may play around with this before you go all out on this headlight, or just do surgery on the wires.

Let us know what route you decided to take. Good luck!

 

All the wires are crumbling so I need to take it apart to get to everything. I have taken apart other headlights so not worried about that part. Oven at 240 for 20 minutes and they tend to come apart like butter. My wife doesn't even get mad anymore If it was just the lenses I would polish them and coat with creacoat and be done. Only reason I am going this far is to get to all the wires as the LED part in near unobtanium from what I can tell and the wires would probably be in the same state.
Anyone have a list or type of pins used so I can order before disassembly?
You know I have never seen my car with the bumper on so not sure, but looks like this No Reserve: 2009 Audi S8 for sale on BaT Auctions - sold for $15,500 on June 6, 2024 (Lot #149,646) | Bring a Trailer

 

I have a spare set of headlights for my S8... along with replacement lenses from China. I have one headlight that I have removed the lense completely and the other I finished dremel... just need to finish taking rest of it out. The lenses appear to be great quality and fitment into first housing appears to be spot on. I chose not to use the oven method. The adhesive used to put these headlights together does not appear to be Butyl... more like windshield adhesive but harder... almost like glue. Very difficult to work with not destroying what you are trying to save. Maybe heating them up would help but I'm already past that stage. Both spare harnesses have the wire insulation crumbling. The more you touch it the more it crumbles. I have seen the method of cutting the harness in half, using heat shrink tubing to re-sleeve the bare conductors, then solder it back together with and cover solder joint with piece of heat shrink.

Reason I went to this effort is that when I bought my S8 it had what appeared to be extremely thick PPF on the headlights. My detailer had never seen it that thick. I believe the stuff was Apex. He would not remove it. I removed it with a heat gun set on low and hours later the original lenses under that PPF were MINT. I think that stuff had been one the headlights since the car was new. So, it worked... just difficult to remove. So, I have more time to tinker with my spare stuff...

Note that the small harness for the HID assembly (all small black wires) crumbles as well and is harder to sleeve... especially around the motor.

(edit) one more thing... keep adhesive tape FAR away from the chromed plastic internal to the headlight. I tried masking tape trying to save the chrome... ya, chrome lifts right off the plastic. Treat the chromed plastic like its gold plated and you are good. BUT the plastic underneath is black... so if your intent is to remove the chrome shouldn't be too hard

I did take apart the HID assembly to see if I could have the reflector re-plated. Not many people do it as it requires specialized equipment - PVD or Physical Vapor Deposition.

 

Well, it is definitely not Butyl, but some sort of polyurethane I believe. Heating up in the oven allowed for some flexibility, but it wouldn't release. I am going to give it one more go before I cut the housing plastic for access. It is a shame because if I could figure out how to remove the grey wiring tray inside the housing I could access and fix all the wires without having to go through all of this..

 

I was able to get the wiring out without cutting the lens or housing, there is a single screw holding the wiring into the light. I did have to cut the harness to get it completely out, but I am 99% sure I have found the correct part numbers to repin everything
TE - 1452128-1 and 2-964296-1 for the male pins

harness removed

no way this light would have worked

 

Thanks for the FYI....I thought that going through the replacement lens option because I noticed that they last longer than the resurfaced lens. From the other complications, I believe resurfacing is the way to go.

 

You are totally committed now. The last time I looked at this, I thought I saw 3 types of pins.
-The first two looked similar one was just smaller than the other. Your TE type.
- The 3rd type looked totally different from the TE type you mentioned.

After going through the process, do a post just the the pin replacement process. What tool was best for you while doing this project?