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Alright so I've been meaning to do this for a long time and happen to recently have come across the perfect candidate, a 2001 Honda Insight with 90K miles and 4 years worth of Arizona sun beating down on the head lights. Here's what I had to deal with.
As you can see they're almost completely fogged over and they looked much worse in sunlight.
Here is my arsenel to fix these:
Mikken 1500 grit sand paper
Mikken 3000 grit sand paper
Meguiar's Backing pad
Rotary buffer with small 3" foam pad
PlastX
I wish Meguiar's would make these nice little foam pads. This one is not quite as good of a foam as the Meguiar's pads are, but it's so nice for working in small areas like this or on small defects.
So the first step was to wash the area I'm working on and tape off the sorrounding area. Afterall I don't want to be polishing the paint unnecessarily if I accidentally go over the edge of the headlight with the sand paper.
Note: soak the sand paper in some water with a drop of car wash soap for a little while before going to work on this.
Now basically you just go to work with the sand paper. Start with the 1500 and keep the surface wet. Dip it in the water often to keep it from clogging up. You will notice it smells like fresh plastic. Keep and even pressure on the backing pad. If necessary spray the headlight down and use the backing pad as a squeege to see if you need to sand more or not.
Here's the headlight after 1500
And after 3000, notice it's already looking a lot better.
Now I'd like to stress this could be done by hand because PlastX is such an awsome product it's micro diminishing abbrasives can cut through 3000 grit sand marks by hand.
Using this small dab of PlastX
And polished a spot by hand
Now I'm just lazy and decided to use the buffer on it. I know PlastX is not designed to be used by rotary, but with the foam pad and a low 1000 rpm it doesn't really generate any heat of significance so it worked out nicely. Still make sure you keep moving and feel the plastic from time to time to make sure you aren't heating it up. If you get it too hot you could potentially warp the plastic.
So here's the after picture
Hey we have optical clarity again!
A comparison of one done and the other not.
Now repeat for the other and they're almost like new again.
This was fairly simple and quick. Like I said you could do it by hand with plastX. The results were they are not like perfect brand new, mainly because of the rock chips taken out of them can't really be sanded out; however, you can judge how much of an improvment was made. If nothing else they are believable for a car with 90,000 miles on it. Saves me the $200+ each a new headlight would have cost!
As you can see they're almost completely fogged over and they looked much worse in sunlight.
Here is my arsenel to fix these:
Mikken 1500 grit sand paper
Mikken 3000 grit sand paper
Meguiar's Backing pad
Rotary buffer with small 3" foam pad
PlastX
I wish Meguiar's would make these nice little foam pads. This one is not quite as good of a foam as the Meguiar's pads are, but it's so nice for working in small areas like this or on small defects.
So the first step was to wash the area I'm working on and tape off the sorrounding area. Afterall I don't want to be polishing the paint unnecessarily if I accidentally go over the edge of the headlight with the sand paper.
Note: soak the sand paper in some water with a drop of car wash soap for a little while before going to work on this.
Now basically you just go to work with the sand paper. Start with the 1500 and keep the surface wet. Dip it in the water often to keep it from clogging up. You will notice it smells like fresh plastic. Keep and even pressure on the backing pad. If necessary spray the headlight down and use the backing pad as a squeege to see if you need to sand more or not.
Here's the headlight after 1500
And after 3000, notice it's already looking a lot better.
Now I'd like to stress this could be done by hand because PlastX is such an awsome product it's micro diminishing abbrasives can cut through 3000 grit sand marks by hand.
Using this small dab of PlastX
And polished a spot by hand
Now I'm just lazy and decided to use the buffer on it. I know PlastX is not designed to be used by rotary, but with the foam pad and a low 1000 rpm it doesn't really generate any heat of significance so it worked out nicely. Still make sure you keep moving and feel the plastic from time to time to make sure you aren't heating it up. If you get it too hot you could potentially warp the plastic.
So here's the after picture
Hey we have optical clarity again!
A comparison of one done and the other not.
Now repeat for the other and they're almost like new again.
This was fairly simple and quick. Like I said you could do it by hand with plastX. The results were they are not like perfect brand new, mainly because of the rock chips taken out of them can't really be sanded out; however, you can judge how much of an improvment was made. If nothing else they are believable for a car with 90,000 miles on it. Saves me the $200+ each a new headlight would have cost!
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