How to restore plastic headlights

Barry

Paint Fanatic
Staff member
I get a lot of calls asking about polishing out the plastic covered headlights that tend to look like crap after a few years.

I have tried to explain that these polish kits are a waste of money and the light may look OK for six months but it will start fading again as you are wiping out the UV protection, unless you want to wax it once a month.

As the picture shows, I have wet sanded the Sequoia with 800, taped it and shot two coats of Universal over both with a touch up gun so I would not need to mask the car any more then I did.
Start to finish 20 minutes, because I had to wait for wife to take a picture.
So of course she wants her car done, 15 minutes and no waiting for pictures.

Nice part, the clear will last a lot longer the the lens will and bugs will clean off easier.

Both cars I used less the 4oz of clear and less then an hour. cleared headlight.jpg

sanded headlight.jpg
 
yup, i have beem doing this for about 4 years now. i can do anywhere from 1 - 6 pairs of lights a week. my customers end up wanting it done but also add a tint to it which i will just add some black candy to the clearcoat to smoke them out. about 2 years ago i put up a website www.smokedoutlights.com. i never really did anything with it nor do i get any work from it but i have the domain so i threw something up real quick.
 
Thanks for the tip Barry, just saved me $40 which I can now put in the beer fund :)
 
I just sprayed a friends headlights last week with the same process. 800 wet, then used a Preval to spray Euro. Didn't want to clean my gun so I had him buy me the Prval, worked good.
 
I did everything wrong but both cars turned out great.

I wet sanded with dawn and 800, wiped with the paper towel you see setting next to the tape.
Did not use a wax and grease remover before or after sanding, did not use a tack cloth.
Grabbed a 4001 activator that had been opened for over a year and it was in the 90's.
Shot a wet coat, it was dry in less then a minute, shot second, untaped and pulled car outside within 5 Min's from spraying.

Moral of the story, when you don't care or it does not matter, you will always get your best job.

If it matters, grab your rear-end and hang on!
 
I realized after spraying a headlight lens like this last year that I had made a major mistake but it still looked great. Forgot to re-adjust the cheater valve on my spray gun from where it was screwed almost all the way in from cleaning the gun.

Somehow it is near impossible to screw up these lenses, they come out looking brand new no matter how you try to mess up
 
There are a couple of things to look out for. Sometimes there is a hard coating on the lens that will be partially degraded, remaining on the lower part of the lens. This coating should be sanded completely off to ensure best results, because if it is not removed, it will not be as transparent as the area where the coating has been removed.

Another thing that guys want to do and should not ever do is use adhesion promoter. This does not improve the job and reduces transparency.

If we have a particularly rough lens, we will hit it with 500 DA, then wet sand it with 800. The DA paper helps to remove oxidized plastic and remnants of the coating.
 
Thank you Crash, I had made a few recommendations over the years to use an adhesion promoter based from info, I was given from a shop that only does headlights as their main business.

I have learned since, this is not necessary and a waste of time and money.
 
I was glad to see you didn't recommend ad-pro in your how-to, but I thought it might be good to specifically say it is not needed or even desirable.
 
I have one of those old timey cars that doesn't use plastic headlights, but I'm going to do this on my taillights. Same principle, and they should look fantastic
 
Barryk;9646 said:
I did everything wrong but both cars turned out great.

I wet sanded with dawn and 800, wiped with the paper towel you see setting next to the tape.
Did not use a wax and grease remover before or after sanding, did not use a tack cloth.
Grabbed a 4001 activator that had been opened for over a year and it was in the 90's.
Shot a wet coat, it was dry in less then a minute, shot second, untaped and pulled car outside within 5 Min's from spraying.

Moral of the story, when you don't care or it does not matter, you will always get your best job.

If it matters, grab your rear-end and hang on!

The only thing you missed was wiping them down with Ospho and letting it dry.
 
is it just a known fact that no matter how you do these lights, they just will not 100% perfetly match a brand new oem light? I'm talking clarity. Obviously clearing them is going to make them look better than before. On some of these i can see just a slight cloudiness to them if i were to put up beside a brand new one. Nature of the plastic or am i just seeing things?
 
I think you are right. Any intercoat or adpro makes this effect worse. I have not yet had anyone be dissatisfied because I am careful to describe the expected result, which is very good but not perfect.
 
thanks crash!!! I have not either, and honestly no one has ever asked or made it an issue...they are so pleased that they look 100% better. Sure is better than paying some of the outrageous prices on these headlights now...even aftermarket are getting high on some of these.
 
Now mine were really bad as its a 2005 with 230,000 miles and almost no clarity but now that I have cleared them they are just ABOUT perfect, if I catch at just right angle I can see a 1 /2 inch dead spot where the inside of the lens has faded. Left side is OK but can slightly pick it out on the right side.

I figure its good for another 7 years, then it will be time for a new car.
 
check out these pics. I clear coated my taillights after I sanded them with 800 grit paper. I think they turned out fantastic! by the way, one of these lights was first sprayed with black epoxy after masking off the colored rectangles. It looks like factory, or better

before the epoxy
2011-07-20_21-13-39_204.jpg


after
P1000324.jpg

P1000317.jpg
 
Barryk;10439 said:
I figure its good for another 7 years, then it will be time for a new car.

Quit driving at night and you can squeese out a few more years!!!!!

Gives me a great idea, I'm going to remove the headlights on my daughters car.
That's great.
 
I just did one and from 10 feet it looks just as good as the new aftermarket one on the other side.
even up close the car looks 100% better.
 
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