i plan on cleaning myhazy headlights this week. What do you guys use?
what is the best things to use? etc…
thanks
start w/ 600 grit and work your way down to 1500, then buff the same as you would a paintjob
what kind of compound?
600 is pretty damn rough for headlights… whatever works for you I guess
the power ball with some plastic polish will make it about a 20 minute job
uuum, ive had to work headlights with 400 before to get the scratches and chips out of them
older headlights that are heavily fogged are usualy beaten to shit. the reasons headlights turn yellow is because headlights when NEW have a protective film over them which doesnt discolor, after that film has worn off the plastic underneith starts to age just like the old convertable’s plastic rear windows
ive done plenty of headlights … a powerball isnt gonna do shit …
Im not knocking your method. I just thought 600 scratches would be a big pain in the dick to get out unless you had a sweet DA or orbital to use.
if they’re slightly hazy just use some mother’s chrome/aluminum polish, i do mine annually with it, world of difference
naw, take a grinder to the leveler pins and use a sanding block with the headlight in a vice
i even did 220 dry once on my airboard because a headlight we needed got booted across the shop floor lense down
i fixed it while the boss was on lunch and got yelled at that the car wasnt supposed to get a new headlight … and then i had to explain why it wasnt yellow anymore
and anyways … straight line scrathes buff up waaay easier then rock chips, so even if there are scrathes left you have to be at the right angle to see them
i see a lot of talk about plastic lenses, but what about glass? same shit?
Thats exactly what I was going to say. When I was at IAS Auto Salon, I spoke with the guys from Meguiars and was telling them their plastic polish doesn’t do shizzle, and they said if the plastic polish doesn’t work, try using sparingly some chrome polish. Their chrom polish is only alittle more agressive than the plastic polish stuff.
I tried it hesitantly on my old Celica and it worked great…
meguiars plastic cleaner and polish (2 bottles)
toothpaste with tartar control is pretty good too… removes calcium deposits (usual cause of the haze)
Does it remove plaque too?
I used NevrDull on my headlights and it made a huuuuge difference
:tup:
depending on the severity, I would use something a bit lighter toothed. and stay away from electric buffers, the heat buildup can craze them.
Here we go folks:
-Spray Bottle
-Car Wash
-(microfiber) towels
-Applicators
-A Aluminum Polish (I chose Mother’s from Wal-Mart)
AND/OR
-A Paint Polish (Like Meguiar’s #82 Swirl Free Polish)
-A Rubber Sanding Block (Ace)
-1500 Grit Wet-Sanding Papers (Ace)
-A Nylon Bristled Brush (Wal-Mart)
-wax or sealant
The first step is to look and see what you’re dealing with. Put about 25ml of car wash into the spray bottle and mix. Clean the surface of the lens to be cleaned.
Inspect it under a condensed light (in other words, your conventional tungsten lamp). Fluorescent lights aren’t the greatest for this. What you are looking for is oxidation or swirls. Oxidation being a “haze” and swirls being, well, tiny tiny tiny scratches. They may appear similar, and for our purposes we can just say they are. Mainly because you’ll deal with them the same way.
You can (should) try the polish before attempting to wetsand. If you can make it look great without wetsanding, you’re saving yourself the trouble. And I’m frugal like that.
If you decide that the polish just isn’t doing it, take a bucket and use 25ml of car wash to one gallon of water. Let the sand paper soak for 20 minutes. Cut the paper and fit it to the sanding block. No, do not ever use your bare hands for sanding. Spray the headlight with your soapy mixture made previously. This will help lubricate the surface. Lube makes things more fun for everybody.
And start sanding. Now, there are many schools of thought on wet sanding. For this purpose, you can go side to side with medium pressure. Small circles are always not a good idea. SMALL CIRCLES ARE ALWAYS NOT A GOOD IDEA. SMALL CIRCLES ARE NEVER A GOOD IDEA. And no hard pressure. Why not just press as hard as you possibly can? Well, each time you take a little of that oxidation off. If you press harder, you take more off. So you press really hard and you take a lot off, but after a few passes you’ve went very far and well, you really didn’t need to. People overpolish paint all the time, and the short term effects are nice looking paint, the long term effects are, well, not nice looking paint.
You’re done when it looks good. Well, when the oxidation or swirls are kept to a minimum. Respray the lense with the soapy solution, and wipe with a towel.
When you polish plastic you have to keep heat to a minimum. Okay, this may sound foreign, but a rotary polisher that spins and spins only (no oscilations) creates a damn lot of heat in a little section. So, keep the polisher on the lowest speed. Infact, if you’ve never used a rotary, don’t learn on plastic.
Apply the polish (Meguiars swirl free polish, meguiars DACP) to the lense surface. If you are doing this by hand, use a terry towel folded into quarters for even pressure, and apply it like you wetsanded it. No you are not letting it haze, you are working it. Work until clear, or light haze, and wipe with a towel. Apply the aluminum polish the same way following the previous polish. Use the brush to remove any residual polish from lettering.
Apply whatever wax or sealant you really want, and be on your merry way. 
We’ll have to talk about glass later, I’m tired.
wow :lol:
i swear you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the methods with 3298943 steps and fluids and my one step/substance
What do you mean? One step Plastic polishes are comparable to cleaner waxes for paint. They do a fine job for like-new surfaces, but they do very little for poor finishes.
Most people think Turtle Wax alone makes paint look great. And that’s fine, but if you have nothing else to compare to then your yardstick soon becomes an inch.
usually when i read your posts i want to slap the shit out of you. then you go and make 1 post that makes up for like 20 shitty ones.
dick. you cant even let me hate you with out pissing me off.
You can yell at me for using mls instead of ounces. Okay, unless you’re really OCD who cares, but one ounce of car wash soap is fine. Actually, if you really like the metric system it would be a little less than 30ml, but who is paying attention to that…has anybody noticed how many different ounces there really are, and they all have no relation to eachother? Ugh.