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SolaraGuy.com • View topic - Reconditioning pitted, yellowed, and scrathed headlights
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Reconditioning pitted, yellowed, and scrathed headlights

Reconditioning pitted, yellowed, and scrathed headlights

Postby xavier » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:10 am

Well, my headlights weren't yellowed so I dont know if it would fix that but anyways.

Materials:
Meguiars cleaner wax (just about any rubbing compound should work)
a drill (or buffer)
a buffing drill head (or buffing padd for buffer
some very fine grit wet/dry sand paper (i used 1500 grit but 2000 would be better)
some dish soap and a small bucket of water
and a shitload of elbow grease

1.) Mix the dish detergent with the water to make a slippery mixture.

2.) Clean the headlights and fog lights

3.) Take sand paper and dip it into the slippery mixture and start sanding. You dont want to press hard, just take your time. There will be a white buildup that you want to rinse off and then sand some more. You want a uniform cloud over the light. It'll be cloudy but smooth.
This is to show you how cloudy it will get. I didnt really spent too much time sanding since I have never done anything like this before
Image

4.) Once the headlight is smooth and cloudy, rinse the headlight off real good. Get all the white residue off.

5.) Take the cleaner wax and coat the headlight with a small coat. I used my fingers to spread it around.
This is what it looked like
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6.) Next, take your drill and buff head or buffer and start buffing. I used a terry cloth head with good results. Be careful too not heat up one part too much. It is plastic and will become brittle and crack if it gets too hot. Anyhow, keep the buffer moving and you should be fine.

Here are some before and afters:

Before:
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After:
Image
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It always helps to have a helper. Here was my helper

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Postby SleeperSolara » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:20 am

Nice tutorial.
Dang looks brand new.
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Postby bunthy » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:50 am

crap ! I love that diy!!!! The results are awesome. My headlights are yellow and pitted. I'm going to definitly try this over the weekend!
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Postby xavier » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:01 am

Thanks for the comments. Yes, I am very pleased with the results. I gotta re-do the fog lights since they are worse being so close to the ground.

Just remember, take your time and be careful.
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Postby P Funky » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:14 am

How old is your helper? Does he fall under Child Labor laws? j/k bro, j/k. The job looks very well done.
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Postby xavier » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:49 am

P Funky wrote:How old is your helper? Does he fall under Child Labor laws? j/k bro, j/k. The job looks very well done.


Hahah. He's 5 and has a work permit! :)
Thanks.
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Postby Sap Z » Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:48 am

thats awesome man !

i cant believe the difference. I'm definately doing this the comming weekend. I'm getting the HID's delivered tomm too...so this will be good.
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Postby Deion » Mon Sep 26, 2005 11:52 am

Very nice! I'll have to try this out.

Post pics of your foglights if you can. If they're like mine, they look like they have a layer of wax paper over them... I want to see what yours turn out like, I was just thinking of buying new housings but if this works good enough, I'll just do your way!
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Postby xavier » Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:33 pm

Deion wrote:Very nice! I'll have to try this out.

Post pics of your foglights if you can. If they're like mine, they look like they have a layer of wax paper over them... I want to see what yours turn out like, I was just thinking of buying new housings but if this works good enough, I'll just do your way!


Ok. ! turned out very good becasue I took the fog out of the bumper which takes some time to remove shrouding. The other one...not so good cuz I got lazy and left it in the bumper and skimped on sanding. It actaully just looks like it did before, like I did nothing to it. Ill have to take the other outta the bumper and show before and afters.
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Postby dominoSLEV6 » Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:35 pm

I just did somehtin gliek this the toher day to get some THICK ASS scratche sout of my taillights from backing into a mailbox. You honestly can't tell at all unless you look so super clos,e it looks brand new. IT involved some sand paper as well, but it's insane how good it looks, I'll post the pics of it when I post new pics of my car, I need to wax her up first tho.

-chris
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Postby toy4x4boy » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:23 pm

Very nice! I will have to do this somtime before winter.
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Postby ClassySolaraGuy » Mon Oct 03, 2005 12:03 am

Great job! I did this to my Jeep as well. The results were like yours!
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Postby toy4x4boy » Sun Oct 09, 2005 7:48 pm

I did this to my car this weekend as well as polishing and waxing it (LOTS of work). Well worth it. My lights are now smooth and much less pitted! Thanks for the tutorial!
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Postby xavier » Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:19 pm

toy4x4boy wrote:I did this to my car this weekend as well as polishing and waxing it (LOTS of work). Well worth it. My lights are now smooth and much less pitted! Thanks for the tutorial!


No prob. Glad it worked well for you
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Postby ClassySolaraGuy » Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:22 pm

Just curious... When you do sand the headlights and all that, isn't it stripping the uv clearcoat off them which comes from the manufacturing process? I noticed mine on my Jeep would turn back to a slight haze in a few months. Probably should just wax them like a would to a car.
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