New Member...How to Remove Pitting from Headlights

B

Budge

New member
Hi Everyone. I'm new here, though I've been lurking for awhile.

I have a question about how to remove pitting from headlights. But I'd also like to share my experience with some products to help other members.

For starters, I am not a professional...I just work on my car. I bought it used and then noticed that the headlights were badly pitted. They were not yellow or faded...in fact, they were crystal clear. But when I turned on the headlights, you could see all the white dings in the plastic. So I decided to try and polish them out.

After doing some research online and at the store, I concluded that most of the products were for "restoring" yellow or hazy headlights. Wet sanding seemed to be the best option. So I tried the 3M Headlight restoration kit. It comes with a drill mount, some 500 and 800 grit discs, a Trizac 3000 disc, an orange foam pad and some rubbing compound. This product worked very well BUT it is extremely difficult to use. Using a drill has the potential to make some very deep sanding marks that can be very difficult to remove. Also, you can get burn spots in the plastic. The product warned about the burn spots if you don't keep the drill moving smoothly, but for me it happened on curved areas of the lens. I used this product on one lens and was able to remove 95% of the pitting, but I introduced some scratches and small burn spots that I cannot seem to remove.

For the other lens, I decided to try just plain wet sanding. I bought 400, 600, and 2500 grit sandpaper, and the Mother's PowerBall4Lights Kit (which contains 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000 grit sandpaper and a polishing ball). this method was not nearly as effective as the 3M drill method because the pits are still there. And the sanding scratches will not come out all the way.

Other products that I have tried are Novus #2 (horrible stuff that added scratches to my lights), Novus #3 (just a polish), PlastX (very similar to 3M rubbing compound), and Plexus (the best polish I tried).

So that's my experience so far. I now have one light that has very little pitting but some scratches and burn marks, and another light with lots of pitting and wet sanding scratches I can't get out.

Any suggestions?
 
The way I personally do headlight restorations are alot like the way I wetsand paint except more steps with differant grits. If they are yellowed badly I'll start off with 600, then 1000, then 2000 all by hand, then 3000 via Griots 3 inch polisher. By then they should almost look finished already. I'll use my rotary buffer and a wool pad, or Griots 3in with cutting pad (surrounding area taped and masked) with 3M compound, follow that with my Griots and a good polish, then apply sealant by hand. Ive recently heard that sealant or wax makes them yellow back faster but Ive not personally experianced that.

If you have scratches you cant get out, take your finest grit paper and wetsand it again pretty hard. Try to do a cris-cross pattern going side to side for a while, then up and down. This should flatten the surface more and ensure that you get the rougher scratches sanded out. If you can still see the rougher scratches then repeat. Then use your rubbing compound and Powerball. They should come right out.
 
Personally, I think there's a line where you have to decide what to live with. From your described method, it sounds like the pitting would be something I'd have decided to live with, as I would have started out very light and slowly moved up trying to get the pitting out. I'd probably have reached my threshold for comfortability long before I got to triple digit sanding paper. Sounds like you have a good handle on familiarity with product and with the process, but with as much sanding and polishing as it sounds like you're doing on the lights, I don't know how long it would last before the lights start clouding up. It might be time to purchase some new lenses/housings.

Flannell has some good advice.
 
Thanks for the tips.

OK, I think I finally have a handle on this. After listening what mrclean81 said, I started over on the headlight with the burn marks. I figured the burn marks were areas of the plastic that sort of melted due to friction from the drill. But when i tried to sand out those areas by hand, I just wasn't taking off enough material. So I bought another 3M headlight restoration kit, and used the 500 grit discs to evenly sand the lens until the burn marks were gone and the I had a nice uniform haze all over. I was very careful to keep the drill moving with light pressure, almost like I was swiping at the light. Then, I switched to using the wet sanding by hand in crosshatch patterns for 400, 600, 1000, 1500, 2000, and 2500 grits. I went nice and slow with medium pressure and lots of water. After each step, I wiped the lens off and let it dry so that I could see my work. Then I used the orange foam pad and the 3M rubbing compound. The results were MUCH better than trying to use the drill for every step. There are no more burn marks and I'm very pleased with the results.

As for yellowing now that I've taken off the outer lens coating, I plan on having the lens covered with Avery Nano Fusion film, which has UV protection and should keep them from yellowing.

Before I have them covered in film, what type of sealant should I use?
 
Budge said:
Hi Everyone. I'm new here, though I've been lurking for awhile.

I have a question about how to remove pitting from headlights. But I'd also like to share my experience with some products to help other members.

For starters, I am not a professional...I just work on my car. I bought it used and then noticed that the headlights were badly pitted. They were not yellow or faded...in fact, they were crystal clear. But when I turned on the headlights, you could see all the white dings in the plastic. So I decided to try and polish them out.

After doing some research online and at the store, I concluded that most of the products were for "restoring" yellow or hazy headlights. Wet sanding seemed to be the best option. So I tried the 3M Headlight restoration kit. It comes with a drill mount, some 500 and 800 grit discs, a Trizac 3000 disc, an orange foam pad and some rubbing compound. This product worked very well BUT it is extremely difficult to use. Using a drill has the potential to make some very deep sanding marks that can be very difficult to remove. Also, you can get burn spots in the plastic. The product warned about the burn spots if you don't keep the drill moving smoothly, but for me it happened on curved areas of the lens. I used this product on one lens and was able to remove 95% of the pitting, but I introduced some scratches and small burn spots that I cannot seem to remove.

For the other lens, I decided to try just plain wet sanding. I bought 400, 600, and 2500 grit sandpaper, and the Mother's PowerBall4Lights Kit (which contains 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000 grit sandpaper and a polishing ball). this method was not nearly as effective as the 3M drill method because the pits are still there. And the sanding scratches will not come out all the way.

Other products that I have tried are Novus #2 (horrible stuff that added scratches to my lights), Novus #3 (just a polish), PlastX (very similar to 3M rubbing compound), and Plexus (the best polish I tried).

So that's my experience so far. I now have one light that has very little pitting but some scratches and burn marks, and another light with lots of pitting and wet sanding scratches I can't get out.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

You can try very critical to successful restoration and labor intensive step. use cloth applicator and need to apply small amount of rubbing compound on it. also use applicator pad to apply rubbing compound to small area at same time using circular motion. buff out with very light cutting compound and finish polishing with a good plastick polish. when you finish your headlights will look much clean than it before appear.
 
What I have done is tape off the area around the headlight first.
Lightly wet 2000-2500 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper and hand sand the cover in small circles.
Follow that with M105 on a DA with a LC 3" orange pad.
Then follow with M205 on a DA with a LC 3" white pad.
This gives me a very clear pristine headlight cover.

Yes, it does begin to fog back up over a few months even after finishing with a sealant.

I have recently purchased Optimum Opti-Coat 2.0 Permanent Paint Coating.
I thought I'd give that a try to see if it will stop the fogging and "seal" the plastic.
My concern is, if it fogs under the Opti-Coat it will be very difficult to remove.

Any thoughts?
 
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