cleaning faded tail lights

[Tha VZA]

how do i clean faded tail lights from a car that well, has some years on it (14 years old, 250000+ km)

when the lights are wet they look clean, and when they dry have a white sort of film on them, that i cannot get off

any ideas??

thanks much

[africano]

Fitz it!!

j/k- Try some laquer thinner and elbow grease.

[Team_Mclaren]

use 1500 or 2000 sandpaper, wet send it, then use plastic polish/protecten, its worked great for my headlights

note: are they plastic or glass?

[Tha VZA]

they are plastic, and yeah that fitz'ing thing reminds me of the oxi clean/orange clean commercials.....very skeptical.......will sand paper or laquer thinner damage them at all considering the age of the plastic?

thanks for help so far

[Tha VZA]

sorry and this will sound stupid but could you explain wet sanding?

[Team_Mclaren]

Originally posted by Tha VZA
sorry and this will sound stupid but could you explain wet sanding?

all u have to do and buy the sand paper, remember 1500 or 2000, the point is that it'll smooth the surface out, take away some surface chips and such, when you're sanding, add water while doing it, thats wet sanding. combine with the plastic cleaner it worked well for me a few friends, but i cant gurantee it for u casue i have not seem your tails before, just a suggestion!

[CrazyMrTwister]

McQuires makes a product that get rid of the cloudness in plastic awesome for clear lenses on headlights and should work on your tailights. Check Crap Tire

[bol]

P21S paintwork cleaner does an awesome job on most plastics as well. Follow that with some Plexus and they should be looking really good again. No need to use sandpaper

[GTS Jeff]

Originally posted by CrazyMrTwister
McQuires makes a product that get rid of the cloudness in plastic awesome for clear lenses on headlights and should work on your tailights. Check Crap Tire

um well i have a bottle of meguiars plastx if thats what ure talking about. its $10 from ct and it made a huge difference on my plastic lenses. i used it to clean up my gauge cluster cover too.

[hockeybronx]

Hey Playa...

Now that you guys brought it up, I went and checked my headlight covers and they had a bit of film on them too. Is this the stuff you guys were referring to?

Edit: Nevermind, I found the stuff...

http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortmen...romSearch=true

[Gspotracer]

just use car wax on them & polish them up, usually works good.

[adishere]

hey boys,,,yes wet sand with a fine 1500 grit, or even just 1000 grit, buy a can of "clear coat" or if you know some one in a body shop get them to clear coat them for you. They will look like brand new lights man. We do them all the time

[3G]

go buy some transparent red paint, went sand them down and paint

[FiveFreshFish]

Originally posted by Team_Mclaren
are they plastic or glass?

Just curious if there are any modern cars with glass tail lights.

[star-k]

Restoring Headlamps

This article was written by *ahem* It is a method to completely and fully restore badly oxidized headlamps on your car.

There are a few methods. One i'm experimenting with my 2001 accord very badly and oxidized headlamp. I'm introducting 300 grit sand paper to fully remove a micronic layer of oxidation and dings. It will seriously rough up the plastic headlamp, however, its necessary if you want to finalize to a Brand New stage. Heres how it works:

Oxidation will occur both inside and outside the headlamp. So if a full clean is needed, removal of the main headlamp assembly unit is recommended, otherwise, skip to section B

By the way, this is the professional method, it will take approximately 12-15 Hours total. Be prepared to enter this project with the intent to finish.

Remove the headlamp assembly from the vehicle
Preheat the headlamp in the oven as to heat the bond adhesive from the lens and housing.
Separate the housing from the clear lens. Be careful of the chrome areas, it is not recommended you clean them if they are not dirty. The chrome plated plastic reflectors are actually extremely delicate and have only a micronic layer of chrome applied to the plastic. Be careful.

With the inside of the lamp, use baking soda and a sponge, rub the inside of the lamp to rid the internal areas of oxidation. Baking soda is a microscopic scrub, equivalent to 30,000 grit sandpaper (although this sandpaper does not exist) it microscopically polishes any rough surfaces left behind from 3000 ~ 6000 grit sand paper, Pro shops use this method. Now continue on.



Section B
**********************

Sanding should be in a smooth, steady pressured circular motion; apply this circular motion with the sandpapers listed below to the outside part of the headlamp.

300 Grit
Sandpaper, dry sand and then wet sand for quite some time the outside, enough to rid the dings and major flaws sustained by headlamp aging. Usually 20-30 minutes of hand sanding will do. Wet sanding is optional, although not necessary at this stage. This 300 Grit will remove major dings, dips and rock belts that the headlamp has sustained over the years.

400 Grit
To avoid skipping steps, 400 will give you a smoother finish and tail away at the remainings of the 300 grit markings. It is recommended to dry and wet sand with 400 grit for 10-15 minutes. Skipping to 600 grit immediately will double the amount of time to fine sand the surface vs 400 grit. The more grit steps used, the easier and better the end result will be. This process will remove the trail sanding from the 300 grit and start to smooth out the major dings, dips and rock belts.


600 Grit
By now, it's been nearly 30 minutes of sanding. I stopped here and resumed the next day of 600 Grit sanding. Wet sanding is recommended at this stage, as this is a very neutral grit (between rough and smooth grits) I would recommend spend some extra time smoothing the entire headlamp with this grit, as to give as much uniform sand on the entire headlamp. 600 Grit will start to shave the major scratches, remove residual pits where the 400 grit started to shave. 600 Grit is by far one of the most important grits, so again, it's probably best to spend the most time sanding with 600. You may find that you will have to certainly replace more of the 600 than the 300 or 400 because it accumulates more residue in the small sand pockets than the 300/400 grits.

800 Grit
Once you feel the headlamp has no traces of visible 400 grit, its safe to move to this 800 grit, again sand uniformly. Be sure to wipe the excess residue with a semi wet / damp microfibre cloth. By now it would be about 1 hrs' worth of sanding. Wet sand of course. At this stage, you will start to see the headlamp yellow haze literally dissapearing. It is also wise to have a few extra slips of sand paper. Generally speaking high grit sand paper is not as effective as low grit, you may find yourself having to replace the high grit paper

1200 - 3000 Grit.
A high grit will literally polish the 600 and 800 surface, however it will not make it shine. It is also recommended that you have an abundant amount of 1200-3000 grit paper, as to make it most effective in pre finalizing the surface for polish hardening compound. The more effective 400-800 grit sanding done, the less time you will need to spend sanding with 1200-3000 grit sandpaper.


Baking Soda;
once you've completely sanded the headlamp uniformly, use baking soda, wet water and a sponge. Baking soda acts like a microscopic scrub. It really does polish the headlamp to a very high degree, sort of like an abrasive microscopic polisher.
I would spend a good 20 minutes rubbing the wet baking soda on the headlamp.


By now, Baking soda would be the final stage of "sanding" the results would be much more effective in using many possible grits of sand paper, as each grit has a specific function.

Once the sanding is complete, I use the Meguires M105 ULtra Cut Compound to polish and seal. This will immediately give it the cleaner polish. to again microscopically clean the surface. M105 is like the next step after baking soda. However with polyacrimide compounds to give a finish surface for preparation for polish. M105 is even more powerful that of Scratch X, but should be only used as a cleaner.

Now proceed to Meguires M205 Polish, You will immediately see the headlamp is brand new. The M205 Polish is like a secondary hard coat compound, not as strong or hard as M105, but much better that of any polish on the market. Be sure to use a buffer for this polish, as it will greatly finalize the headlamp look.

NExt, after M205 Polish, use a wax and complete the wax with a glaze. Now you have a completely "new" headlamp.

[streethondas]

i gotta doo this on my jetta's headlights,i tired that canadiantire clean stuff but it really didnt work and i spent like 2hours sanding the god dam thing?

[DuPont]

Originally posted by star-k

Section B
**********************

Sanding should be in a smooth, steady pressured circular motion; apply this circular motion with the sandpapers listed below to the outside part of the headlamp.

300 Grit
Sandpaper, dry sand and then wet sand for quite some time the outside, enough to rid the dings and major flaws sustained by headlamp aging. Usually 20-30 minutes of hand sanding will do. Wet sanding is optional, although not necessary at this stage. This 300 Grit will remove major dings, dips and rock belts that the headlamp has sustained over the years.

400 Grit
To avoid skipping steps, 400 will give you a smoother finish and tail away at the remainings of the 300 grit markings. It is recommended to dry and wet sand with 400 grit for 10-15 minutes. Skipping to 600 grit immediately will double the amount of time to fine sand the surface vs 400 grit. The more grit steps used, the easier and better the end result will be. This process will remove the trail sanding from the 300 grit and start to smooth out the major dings, dips and rock belts.

Unless your lenses look sandblasted and totally f'd you could start with 600.
Most of the lenses i've restored were only scratched from carwash and snow brushes. Plastic headlights and taillights respond to power polishing just like paint. Just don't build up too much heat. And to keep them looking brandnew get them 3m'd

[sneek]

Originally posted by star-k
Restoring Headlamps

Great write up! haha You bumped a really old thread, but good post!

[bituerbo]

Originally posted by CrazyMrTwister
McQuires makes a product that get rid of the cloudness in plastic awesome for clear lenses on headlights and should work on your tailights. Check Crap Tire

Werd. Meguiars PlastiX or 3M makes a similar product for polishing plasic.

[alloroc]

make a baking soda paste and use a little elbow grease.