Surefire bezel removal?

I just bought my first 2 Surefire lights and I want to mod one of them. I bought an L4 and an E1E. I am trying to remove the bezel from the E1E and it wont budge. The one on the L4 wont either. I want to replace the bulb in the E1E with a blue LED. Is there a trick to removing the bezel? I don't want to use a tool that will ruine the anodizing. Also any help offered on what LED and driver to use would be great also. Thanks from a newbie!

-Brian

Brian,

I had once used a hairdryer to heat up the side of the E2E bezel for opening it up. After 10+ minutes of heating it, I proceed to wrap towel around the burning hot bezel and simply twist it open.

Just make sure you have thick towels to grab and twist, and heat it up evenly around the side of the bezel.

Good luck! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Heat and strap wrenches should do the trick.

Just wanting to throw my 2 cents in here and clarify some things. Are you talking about taking the bezel off the body, or actually taking apart the bezel?

I never had a problem removing the bezel off the body, snapped some visuals for you..



If you are taking apart the bezel itself, I apologize for posting this and sounds like the above two posts will work nicely taking apart the bezel.

JasonC8301 has a point - I admit the same thing crossed my mind too.

It is important to clarify that to remove the lamp assembly or replace the batteries of the E1e/E2e/E2d the whole bezel is unscrewed from the body.

The bezel itself is constructed from two parts screwed together that are no intended to be disassembled.

This photo shows what can happen if you play with flashlights in the dark /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

It also shows a golden E Series Bezel attached to black body showing the bezel as a whole unit.

Al

The English language can be interesting sometimes! A collegue of mine is a Brit working in Dublin,Ireland, and has made arrangements to have me "collected" at the airport there next tuesday. (Visions of being grabbed and thrown in the "boot" of a waiting car. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif ) I interprited Brian's question as how to disassemble the light's head. On this side of the pond, the term "bezel" more properly refers to the ring which retains the lens. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

The bezels can be a bear to remove. Heat + strap wrench(es) and even lathe collets may be required.

("Collected!" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crackup.gif )

Larry

(Edit: Al, you might want to resize that pic.)

I 'thumbed' it... better I think. Sorry about that.

Al /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Thanks to all for the advice! I'm sorry for the confusion. I should have said that I want to remove the bezel so I can get the reflector and lens out. In surfing the web, I saw an E1E with a head that was machined to be shorter. I want to machine the head on my E1E and machine a new reflector to fit the shortened head and LED assembly. I'm going to start my project soon so I'll keep you all up-dated. Thanks again for the help!

-Brian

This question is of interest to me as well.

I have a Defender head with pocket-eater bezel.

I would like to unscrew it and replace with something stainless steel.

1) Does a stainless steel bezel for "E" series head exist?

2) If so, can someone point me in the right direction?

Thank you!

I don't know of a stainless one but I have seen people thread the end of a mah light onto the e-series bezel. You could find a silver mag bezel

Go to eseries addicts thread and look at post number 620

Mikeg23 said:

I don't know of a stainless one but I have seen people thread the end of a mah light onto the e-series bezel. You could find a silver mag bezel

Click to expand...

I wouldn't go that route... I did some experiments in the past and, even if on few bezels, few different MiniMag bezel rings did fit and had threaded area enough for tight fit so it doesn't slip of the bezel, it's still not perfect solution as threads are different... it only locks out at the very end which is far from setup that would allow rigidity and water-tightness as with stock... some tight fitting that would include finding tougher lens (minimag plastic is easy to deform, easy to scratch but at least does not crack easily like mineral 1mm I tried to replace it with) and then gluing it forever with thread-lock would have to take place...

Illumination Supply did have limited supply of stainless steel ones in the past that he offered directly on CPFMP... I will try to find a machining workshop locally and see if they would be able to machine something on CNC, same dimensions as Surefire, only from stainless steel... maybe even stainless steel bezel to go in set... who knows how much would they want for how many... we'll see... as soon as I find time...

If it's the "head" yeah a blow drier to heat the head, then dip the body (only) into ice water. Hopefully the expansion/contraction disparity between the two parts will allow loosening.