I Polished My Other Headlight

[Part 2 of my attempt to refinish my worn headlight lenses.]

I actually did this a couple weekends ago, but hadn’t had time to write it up.

As before, these are the supplies i used—mostly stuff i found in the garage.

• Spray bottle with soapy water
• Rag
• 400 grit wet/dry
• 600 grit wet/dry
• 1000 grit wet/dry
• 1500 grit wet/dry
• Meguiar’s PlastX clear plastic polish
• Applicator pad

Before:

Notice the deep, scaly patches of haze that developed over the years—it almost had a fuzzy feel to it. This passenger-side lens was worse off than the other. So going into it i knew i’d have to hit it with the rough grit much more to erase the deep blemishes.

Masked and getting sprayed:

400 grit:

Nice and frosty. I spent a lot of time here just trying to get down to a “clean layer” of lens. The crackle and pitting was pretty deep.

600 grit:

Slightly more transparent.

1000 grit:

Starting to clear up. But i think i needed to go over it more at this level to erase some of the deeper sanding scratches.

1500 grit:

Pretty clear, but still some streaking and scratches. This lens had a lot more “fog” at this point than the first one.

Polish:

Clear and shiny. But still a tad cloudy. I probably need to redo it from the 1000 grit level.

Before and after:

Yeah, the sun changed the lighting while i worked on it, but the difference in the lens should be apparent.

This lens had pits on the inside of the lens—not sure how that happens. You can also see some of the sanding scratches i failed to remove.

Don’t forget to check out the Flickr photo set and slideshow, as well as the run-through of the first headlight.