This is a warning. Repair of an AFS assembly is not for the impatient or fumble fingered, but it can be done.
When I bought my fabulous '07 Black XKR convertible in 2017 I recognized the driver side High Beam was not working. In my naivete I assumed it was a bulb as I had no experience with modern HID headlights. When I realized the problem was not a bulb, but the shutter inside the assembly, I poked around with a probe and was able the activate the shutter with a battery on my workbench. This confirmed to me the problem was a bad connection inside the headlamp assembly, but I was not annoyed enough to risk breaking the assembly to repair the high beam, so I lived with it.
Fast forward to December 2021. I had seen enough You Tube videos of someone separating the lens from the housing to finally give it a try. I cooked the assembly for 15 minutes at 275 in the oven and was able to persuade the parts to separate with the help of a panel connector lifter tool from Harbor Freight. I quickly spotted the broken wire on the projector assembly and began to smile at my good fortune and judgement about addressing this lingering problem. Foolish earthling...
As I started to repair the broken wire, I noticed the insulation on a few other wires was coming off. I soldered the wire I was working on and went looking for a way to insulate the existing wires. I settled on a liquid that is supposed to be as good as electrical tape and started to paint the exposed wires, As I painted one, the insulation on the next one disintegrated. Before long, almost every wire in the harness had disintegrated insulation but I kept on going since I had no way to replace the harness. It ended up a bit of a gooey mess, but when I reinstalled the headlight, it worked...for 30 minutes. Then it all went south with an AFS light on the dash and multiple codes thrown. I realized the problem was probably shorted wires in the assembly, so I figured it was time to buckle down and fix the wiring harness as well as the projector assembly.
To fix the wiring harness, I would have to replace all but about 3 wires that were not bare. To fix the projector assembly I would have to replace all the wires. the first problem was I did not have access to the plugs used in the assembly, and I was afraid of breaking the existing plugs if I put too much stress on them. Every plastic piece on this car is brittle, and after the way the insulation disintegrated, I didn't want to chance it. I found a spool of wire in my collection that was the same as the small wires in the projector assembly, and I found a selection of shrink tubing at AutoZone. By cutting the wires ONE-BY-ONE and splicing the new wire with an overlapped twist and solder I replace every wire in the projector and harness. Because of the small clearances, I used a piece of shrink tubing to insulate the wire from the original connection to the splice point to make sure the insulation went all the way to the original plug connector. Then I soldered in the new wire and measured to the other end of the connector. I cut off the old wire with enough length to place a shrink tube butted up to the connector and then shrunk it. I pushed a tube down the wire to cover the solder and shrank it over the bare wire. I put another tube on the wire and pushed it as far as possible from where I was about to solder, and then soldered the other end. Then I pushed the tube over the second solder connection to complete the process for one wire. After that it was a simple matter of repeating the process 20 or 30 times.
Most of the wires are the same gauge, but there are a few heavier ones for driving regular bulbs and whatnot so be aware of the gauge of the wire you are splicing.
This was a time-consuming tedious process that took me 2 full days. I am not sure if the disintegrated insulation is a common problem; if it was the result of heating the assembly at 275; or if a previous owner lived in Chernobyl. I do know that I scoured the internet before embarking on this and the best price I could find for an AFS Headlight for a 2007 XKR was $2,100. I think the prices have been going up as I recall seeing one a few years ago for $800. All-in-all, 2 days or $2,100 seems to be a reasonable trade-off for an old, retired person.
As of now, it is working. I am holding my breath for the other headlight to act up.