headlight cleaner

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B-SERIES_BOY

Junior Member
This is probably a stupid question but does anyone know how to remove the film and haze from the outside of a headlight lense? I read about nail polish remover with acetone but it did nothing. If anything it made it worse. I have heard about plastic polishes but can't find them anywhere locally. Any ideas? Thanks
 
WELL IF YOU USED NAIL POLISH REMOVER ON IT YOU HAVE PROBALY F'ED IT UP BUT YOU SHOULD USE PLASTIC POLISH.

PS sorry for the caps
 
This is a how to someone wrote for us Escort owners...

but if your lenses are yellow and plastic like those...it'll work.

Well all you have to do to fix that (and make them equal to a brand new set!!!!)

Equipment:

Palmsander (not the round orbitals....but the rectangular ones)
40 or 80 sanding drum (medium small)
220 grit wet/dry silicon carbide sandpaper
320 " " " "
600 " " " "
1500 " " " " "
"Mibro" First Stage hevey cleaning compound
"Mibro" Second Stage medium cleaningcompound
"Mibro" Final Polish compound
Dish detergent (non abrasive)
Water
Buffing disk or wheel
Drill (for the buffing disk)

Steps:

1) Take off headlight assemblies from Escort (disconnect wire harness)

(Do "one" of the following...2a or 2b)

2a) Don't touch the Headlight alignment nubs and proceed to step 3

2b) Sand off the Headlight alignment nubs (if you want to have a cleaner look and can align your headlights on a wall) that come out of your lenses with the sanding drum....be carfull not to scratch the lens surface or you'll just be making more work in the next step

3) Get The palm sander and wet sand (with a bit of detergent in the water) with 220 grit to sand the entire surface smooth....including the remainder of the ford logo and the nubs (option 2b) or around the nubs (option 2a) and any scratches

4) continue to wet sand the entire surface with each progressive grit really well...320, 600, 1500.

6) Dry off the whole lens assembly

7) then crack out the buffing disk on the drill (or wheel). Load up the disk with the "heavy" compound and buff out all of the faint swirl marks that the sander left.

8 ) after that is done...most of the compound should be worn out of the disk.....load it up with the "medium" and do the same

9)Finally load up the disk with a lot of the final polishing compound and do a really thorough job of buffing the entire surface.

10) wipe the lense off with a clean cotton cloth and YOUR DONE!!!

The head lights with look near Crystal clear with no yellow, oxidized crap on it and your blue/white Xenon bulbs will now actually look really good (plus you can actually see at night...bonus!)
 
go to your local automotive paint store. Get some wet or dry sandpaper, just rough enough to take out any scratches. Polish the hazy plastic back out.
^^^The ten step program up there is perfect. Too perfect. All that paper, equipment, and polish would cost you more than new lights. One good bottle of cleaner/polish would cost ten bucks.

Rough guess, I'd start with 1000 grit. Then maybe once over with 1500, 2000.

After that, polish by hand with a decent cloth. The wet sanding can also be done by hand, in a back and forth motion(perpendicular to scratches.

My Calling Card:
Bike I painted for my buddy Mitch, West Coast Chopper(Real Thing)
 
What??? You'd START with 1000 grit? have you ever used sand paper? with 1000 grit you'd sand one headlight down to where you need it in...oh...about 4 days.

Sand paper is like 3.99 for 10 sheets. The cleaning compound can be gotten at a hardware store for like 10 bucks.

Now if we're talking about Escort replacement lamps, mine were 300 bucks for the set, had I known about this How-to before hand...Oh yeah...I would have saved 250 bucks PLUS...
 
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