InfernalVortex
Well-Known Member
Actually, my headlights are aftermarket and fairly nice looking, I dont really have a problem with them but I notice a lot of people who do. But my parking lamps look absolutely terrible in comparison. I've been annoyed about how terrible they look for a while. See?
So I bought this $20 kit to restore headlight lenses. Some sandpapers attached to a drill for 25 minutes or so and I come out with these beauties:
Some of the remaining imperfections are where things have hit the lense over 200k miles of use creating dents and scratches too deep for the sanding and polishing process to remove. But most of it is actually crud that has somehow accumulated behind the lens. The actual surface of the lense looks very, VERY good.
Unfortunately now that the lense is clear it has become apparent that one of them has some mildew issues. It's on the back of the lens so I threw it in the oven to loosen up the sealant/glue or whatever it is they use to peel it apart. Unfortunately, it seemed pretty solid so I decided to quit while I was ahead.
I can see all sorts of things on the backside of the lenses now which is annoying. There's even dead bugs in there???
Still, they look very nice on the car...
Huge improvement.
I suggest anyone who has cloudy headlight/parking light/ foglight/tail light lenses to do this. It was beyond easy and very cheap. I would suggest removing it from the car before you take power tools to it, as my kit wants you to buy their brand's masking tape and leave the light on the car. I dont think so. You just sand for a short while with the low grit until the discolored layer is gone, polish it a bit with the higher grit, and then go to all out polishing. You're just sanding off the discolored, cloudy layer on top, and polishing the new, clear plastic under it. Different kits may work differently, but that's how my kit worked, and most of them should work along the same principles. Just get plastic polish and some sandpaper and you can do it by hand if you like. All I can say is if I knew it was this easy to fix I would have taken care of it a long, long time ago. Lesson learned.
My only concern, and I was hoping some of you smarter guys here would be able to help me out with this, is that I've heard they will just oxidize over again in due time. So I can probably re-polish them occasionally I suppose. The kit I bought was cheap and I can do this at least 2 or 3 more times if not more.
But maybe there is there some other way to protect it? Clearcoat maybe?
So I bought this $20 kit to restore headlight lenses. Some sandpapers attached to a drill for 25 minutes or so and I come out with these beauties:
Some of the remaining imperfections are where things have hit the lense over 200k miles of use creating dents and scratches too deep for the sanding and polishing process to remove. But most of it is actually crud that has somehow accumulated behind the lens. The actual surface of the lense looks very, VERY good.
Unfortunately now that the lense is clear it has become apparent that one of them has some mildew issues. It's on the back of the lens so I threw it in the oven to loosen up the sealant/glue or whatever it is they use to peel it apart. Unfortunately, it seemed pretty solid so I decided to quit while I was ahead.
I can see all sorts of things on the backside of the lenses now which is annoying. There's even dead bugs in there???
Still, they look very nice on the car...
Huge improvement.
I suggest anyone who has cloudy headlight/parking light/ foglight/tail light lenses to do this. It was beyond easy and very cheap. I would suggest removing it from the car before you take power tools to it, as my kit wants you to buy their brand's masking tape and leave the light on the car. I dont think so. You just sand for a short while with the low grit until the discolored layer is gone, polish it a bit with the higher grit, and then go to all out polishing. You're just sanding off the discolored, cloudy layer on top, and polishing the new, clear plastic under it. Different kits may work differently, but that's how my kit worked, and most of them should work along the same principles. Just get plastic polish and some sandpaper and you can do it by hand if you like. All I can say is if I knew it was this easy to fix I would have taken care of it a long, long time ago. Lesson learned.
My only concern, and I was hoping some of you smarter guys here would be able to help me out with this, is that I've heard they will just oxidize over again in due time. So I can probably re-polish them occasionally I suppose. The kit I bought was cheap and I can do this at least 2 or 3 more times if not more.
But maybe there is there some other way to protect it? Clearcoat maybe?
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