So till yesterday I thought the disassembling of the headlights was a "bumper-off" event, so it was on my 2nd-phase TO DO list.

However, I stumbled upon this picture, which seems to have it done with everything around untouched.
So, is this possible, and how exactly do I do this without breaking anything?

My car's front was repainted by the PO, and there is a thick layer of dust laying in one of the headlights.
I know it will be a pain to clean up without damaging the chrome film, but I figured it should at least be more controllable with the units on a table.

 

Eric,
I attach the method for my 1999 XK8, which I found on DCR Autoparts. I made a minor tweak and took the wheel and wheel liner off too to get better access, but the method is sound to disassemble the front/rear halves of the headlamp unit.

I had a forum thread on this recently as below entitled "1999 XK8 4.0L Convertible Headlamp Lense change".
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...change-213745/

DCR sold the front lense only and shipped overseas to me in Bahrain. Dave C is very helpful but a bit slow on email responses. The bad news is that these headlamps are known to condensate inside and the dust you are seeing could be the silvering coating turning to ...... dust as mine had. Luckily DCR sold the front lense only, as the actual rear light units were fine and shipped the lense overseas to me in Bahrain. Dave C is very helpful but a bit slow on email responses.
The result was astonishing. See pic below.

 

David, that is fantastic, exact the info I was after, thanks a million!

I wonder why your thread did not show up, maybe because you call them 'headlamps', while I was searching for 'headlights'.
I am pretty sure it is sanding dust in my case, I just cleaned the fog-lights and wheel arch liners last week, and removed a kilo of it .

 

Hi guys, I am enjoying your discussion, seems like you have your problem covered, but not sure if it will work on my 2006. Only my left headlamp is condensing. I am trying to figure out how to either open it up to clear the drain pipe, or remove it for cleaning. From the discussion, it appears that my unit may be a one piece unit?
Thx.