I have many scratches on my headlights, not to mention one headlight that was egged and has eggshell damage. I'd like to wetsand these out, would 2000 grit wetsand paper and Plastx work well with a Random Orbital Buffer (not rotary) and a little bit of elbow grease?

 

for plastic...you would need more like 10,000 grit paper followed by polish....hard to find....corvette restore shops have a kit to polish the rear plexi window on a removable hardtop to make it clear again.

 

auto parts places sell headlight resto kits that you can use

usually they contain some 2k grit, 4k grit, 6k grit, polish and sealant and work really well

 

maguiers platic X or something like that works like a charm

 

You may want to invest in some 3M headlight film protection.

Later...
Bruce

 

Thanks guys, I'm going to run to the store and find some headlight restore kits. Pretty sure they don't have it as I'm a regular in the detail isle, even though my truck is always dirty/scratched I swear I spend time in there dreaming.

I have Plast-x and just came back inside with no luck. I used toothpaste as an abrasive and it cleaned the headlight up a little but only got about 10-20% out. Black 2000 great advice thanks.

And about 10k grit, what would be the best place that carries those (hobby shops?). What kind of hobby shops, I'm not even sure what a hobby shop entails, believe it or not.

Check out this link I found. Unfortunately I've had little luck need something more aggressive, I'm going to use my 2500 grit, then 3000 grit, then look around for some 10k at a store. Big jump there I Know.

 

Be VERY carefull with the buffer because it is alot easier to burn into plastic than you would ever think it is....speed is not your freind in this case!!! I use a polishing bonnet on the end of a cordless drill to polish out the taillights on the old Camaros and Firebirds I mess with and it works great...anything faster than that will melt or burn into the plastic and cause it to haze even worse.

 

Permatex makes a decent headlight restoration kit you should be able to find at any parts house. Don't attempt it with a buffer and sand paper. You will only make things worse. Use the kit, follow the directions, and it should turn out fine.

 

DIDDO
too fast and it will burn em. I too use a small buffer pad on a drill attachement

what i did to my buddies mustang (yellow lights galore) was wet-sanded down with 400 600 etc then hit them up with mothers metal MAG polish.
it has microbeads or somthign and scuffs out and smooths everything really well. then after that hit them up with the plastx next.. they looked like new.

in your case maybe skip the wetsand if they arent bad and just do the mag polish then the plastx.

 

www.micro-surface.com

 

I restored the headlights on my wife's old grand am using 8k grit sandpaper (3M paper from walmart, in auto section) then following up with PlastX using a powerball on the drill at a low speed. Good luck!

 

Did you check out Auto Detailing solutions asthey have a kit just for this issue. On top of that they have alot more stuff for the rest of your truck that you might like!


Here is the link to the kits you might like!
http://www.autodetailingsolutions.co...tion%20kit.htm