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Headlight And Foglight Lense Restoration: How To


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#1
Old School REX

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We've been doing this to cars at my shop for forever... Any car with plastic headlights has a terrible glazed over, white, smokey look about them after some years of road grime, rock chips, harsh chemicals when cleaning, etc etc etc... This oxidation of the plastic is very easily reversable however and I'm going to show you how. Now I know that the CRX/Civic's headlights are NOT plastic, but.... our tail lights are. So are our corner, marker, bumper, liscense plate, etc lights. biggrin.gif This same method applies to ALL of the above. The car on the table today is my girlfriends Mazda Miata (fuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnn car... laugh.gif ) The headlights are plastic and the Hella foggs are glass. Some lights can become so dis-colored that the oxidation, due usually to leaks in the light, will be on the inside of the lense. In which case you will actually have to separate the lense from the light body to clean the inside of the plastic. If this is the case of your lights see the foglight fix I do near the bottom to see how I separated the lights before begining repair.

Plastic headlight in desprate need of repair. (I've seen worse,,, but I'm picky about my lights)


Here you can actually see the milky build up


This shot is from the lense facing directly to the bulb... see all the minute scratches and chipps from rocks, washing, etc... ?


Alright, we'll start the process by wet sanding the light. Be sure you tape off your painted area around the light to avoid scuffing the paint which WILL require you to go back and buff the paint as well. (do as I say, not as I do; I've done this a thousand times and have become over confident in myself, and therefore do not use tape... rolleyes.gif )
1500 grit :for the big gouges and scratches
2000 grit : to finish with a nice "swrill" effect


Nice circular motions with constant medeum pressure while keeping both your paper and your surface wet with the spray bottle filled with water will yeild this if you've done it right. The entire light should look the same and you should no longer be able to see any chips (so long as they are not too deep to repair).


This is the same shot as the first one from the lense toward the bulb to show the texture of the plastic at this stage.



Continued....

#2
Old School REX

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Well, the lights look pretty much ruined now… but don’t worry; they are not.
We now go back with a good variable speed buffer (any brand or type will do) and a “cutting” or “wool” pad. This utilized along with a heavy compound of your choice (not polish, but compound) will start the restoration process. The paint stick is to clean the pad…


You are going to buff this just like you would a car, leave the tape in place for this because the cutter pad and compound WILL burn your paint at such an awkward angle you will be at while polishing on the light. Medium pressure will do here, as will about two quarters size dots of the compound for a light this size.
You will then go back with a “polishing” or “foam” pad with a polish of your choice.


Do this polishing process the same way as you did the buffing, and your results should turn out similar to this!


This is the same angle as the first two shots… look at that clarity! Lol


Disclaimer for me… I KNOW there are kits out there on the market now that do this, and there are also special plastic specific polishes… but I’ll fill you in on a little secret. Unless the plastic you are polishing is the rear window of your roadster… the polish you use on your paint, if a good product it is, will do just as good if not better job. IMHO If you just happen to have this stuff lying around from buffing your car, or are only missing a few pieces that I showed, it is actually more cost effective to do it this way; and believe me… you can expect SPECTACULAR results.

Now on to the fog lights…

Oh dear….

Continued…..



#3
Old School REX

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Okay, my main problem here was water leaking into the light and forming enough puddles in the lens to actually short out the light, and pop the bulb…. Every time it rained in fact; POW we would have to buy a new bulb.
This is the method you can use to clean the inside of a plastic lens headlight or tail light etc… if the oxidation has built up there as well.
Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit
Stick the light in glass side down on a flat baking pan
Let it sit for 15 minutes
Pull it out and pry off the lens from the light body using a flat blade screwdriver

This may take putting the light back in the oven as you slowly work your way around the light prying very gently as you go around and around until the light is separated.

PLASTIC LENS LIGHTS TAKE THE SAME HEAT AND TIME IN THE OVEN TO REMOVE AS THE GLASS ONES I HAVE HERE DO

Once you have the lens off, you can repeat the process from the outside to the inside to clear off all the oxidation.
IF YOU ARE DEALING WITH GLASS LENS LIGHTS, you can use pneumatic grinder with 1000 grit paper on it with water in a wet sanding method to clear almost all minor chips and blemishes. Buffing will only clear very, very minor scratches on glass.
I was not concerned with the clarity of the glass lenses here, so I opted to just hand wet sand to clear overspray, road grime, and other minor blemishes away…




That’s about as good as it will get on glass if you’re only doing this by hand.
From here it is really just up to you what you do depending on how your particular lights are designed. You can paint things on the inside housing while the light is apart or get creative in any way really. I’ve seen some neat stuff… The Miata’s lights have a projector style lens on the inside of the outer lens which I simply cleaned and re-installed.




Then, once you have accomplished everything you wanted to accomplish, you can slap it all back together. Clean off all the old adhesive using a razor blade. Then using a clear RTV silicone adhesive sealant such as the Permatex product, part no. 66B that I prefer run a bead around the outside edge of the light body to match the factory size, depth, etc…


Press the lens back on firmly and pop it back in the oven at 200 for another 10-15 min. to speed the glue set up time before letting sit over night. That is all for now!

Stay tuned for a few glamour shots after the Silverstar headlight bulbs are installed and the fogs are back in the car with just some extra OEM H3 style bulbs I had lying around for now.

Enjoy!





#4
C8V6C

Very nice! I've done the half assed way on some EKs I have owned...but that is the right way to do it!

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#5
Old School REX

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Thanks man! I knew this wouldn't get much attention on here, especially seeing as our cars lights are glass... lol buuuuuut if anybody ever needs it I can link em' to it anyway! lol

#6
C8V6C

Good lookin out!

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#7
Airgazm86

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Instead of using a buffer, you can simply use a little elbow grease and Meguiar's Plast-X polish after wet-sanding with 2000-grit. I've done countless lights using this method, including my DSM headlights, and it works well.




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#8
ChrisF-dude

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Works on old bumper lights.

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#9
Old School REX

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QUOTE (Airgazm86 @ Aug 24 2009, 02:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Instead of using a buffer, you can simply use a little elbow grease and Meguiar's Plast-X polish after wet-sanding with 2000-grit. I've done countless lights using this method, including my DSM headlights, and it works well.






good point, besides... it is hard to get a buffer on those small lights anyway. And yes it is just as effective.