95sc300t

I've noticed a number of people saying that their headlights are hazy.. Sometimes this is from a crack, or broken seal and condensation building up on the inside.. THIS FIX IS NOT FOR CONDENSATION, OR INTERIOR HEADLIGHT ISSUES.

THis fix is for the exterior of the headlights.

First, here is what the car's headlights looked like before I started.. Not terrible, but with a new paint job, I HAD to do something, because they really stood out as looking BAD, and made the whole car look worse becuase of it.


I wanted to get rid of the scratch, and the foggy look.

First, I cleaned a small patch with some plastic cleaner/scratch remover.. (I really don't think it makes a difference which you use) BUT, even though the fogginess would go away, and give it a cleaner look, there was a very noticeable texture left to the lenses outter surface, almost like orange peel in paint. So, I got some 1500, and 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper, and gently, with a hand-sprayer of water sanded the entire surface of the headlight lense, to remove any of that texture. I probably spent 45 minutes per headlight, by hand, sanding them down, till they had a totally consistant hazy look, with no texture showing.

Then, I used a scrubbing pad, that I got from the local NAPA auto parts store, and soaked a corner with the plastic polish, and rubbed the surface of the lense thouroughly for probably 5 minutes.. Maby 10. THe scrubbing pad, is white, is somewhat stiff, like cardboard, and is sold by NAPA as a fine scratch remover for automotive paint.. It should be in the automotive paint & body section... Anyways, after that, I finished off, with soaking a paper towel with the plastic polish, and vigorously going over the surface again, and it cleaned up to a very nice texture free, high gloss finish.

Here are some pictures.. The first picture is after I sanded the entire headlight, then polished the outside edge of the headlight.. Nice contrast, showing it 1/2 way done.



After finishing the sanding/ polishing of both headlights, I then wraped/ covered them with 3m's paint protection film, (Called Clear-bra, Stone Shield, etc, etc by some companies) in order to keep the plastic from oxidizing, or getting all the little chips that happen from flying stones/sand while driving.. Here are a few pictures of the finished project.




There you go. It should be years before it needs any kind of attention again, with the cleanup on the lenses, and then the protection of the 3m film.

FOr those of you not familiar with the 3m paint protection film (Ok, the one guy that hasn't heard of it yet...) Here is a picture of my front bumper, about 1/2 way finished with a paint protection installation.. This is what I do for a living, along with window tinting. If you want to see more, goto my WEBPAGE.
[IMG]Drivers closeup[/IMG]

95sc300t

If anyone can tell me why my pictures don't appear in the article, please do.. I clicked on the "IMG" button, and entered the link, but they are not showing up in the article..??

Guitarman

I'm guessing that the html tag is the problem. i.e. when you place the URL of the pic into the image tab, it places "html" on the front of your URL, and your URL looks as though it already HAS it, thus it's coming out "http://http" twice. You might want to try removing the http attatched to your URL, or simply copy/paste your url and add the IMG brackets onto both ends of the URL yourself. with the pic URL in between.