Well, I finally decided to put my '05 coupe HLs in the oven and open them up for some painting/led strips. I've read the DIYs and everything, but am still having a problem opening them up. I baked them at 220 for 15 minutes. When I took them out, I removed the three screws holding the lens to the housing, and proceeded to pry up the 9 or so tabs. First, I didn't like how the flathead screwdriver was biting into the plastic when prying up the tabs, but I'll deal. My problem is, I still can't get the lens off. Any tips? It just seems like all the damn tabs are what's giving me a problem.

 

try 240 for 5 -7 minutes....

then like you said, just slowly go along the seam twisting your driver, (rather than prying like a level which makes the indentations like you said) and it will slightly get loose all over. then, if this took awhile, pop it back in for another 5 mintues or so, and when it comes out, just use your driver as leverage and start pulling on one side of the lense... the entire side should start to pull away and you will get tons of silicon sealant "strings" appearing, as they start to make "crack" and "pop" noises as they separate. you will want to run your driver / pencil / pen whatever through them to make sure they don't get all over everything. Once you have one side opened up a few inches it's straightforward and easy to finish pulling apart the rest.

it can be useful if you have a friend to deal with the silicon strings if it's your first time and you need both hands to get a good grip on it to pull the side open. but once you do it a few times it's easy to do alone.

also, by doing this method, you don't really have to worry about making sure that ALL the tabs are "off" at the sametime, you really need to just get all the tabs on one side and the bottom off, then separate!

 

Great response, visibiliti. I will try 240 for 5-7 when I get home from work. I appreciate you're help, as you've answered a few of my questions in the past. Will surely post an update of the lights when complete. Thanks again.