The lenses on my 1999 F150 were starting to look pretty nasty. They were scratched and hazy, and starting to look yellowed. I had used some plastic polish on them a while back, but it didn't do that much to solve the problem.

I was in the local auto parts store and saw a "Headlight Restoration" kit made by Permatex, for $14. I also picked up a Mother's "Mini Ball" polishing device, since it was on sale.

The Permatex kit comes with 4 sheets of waterproof sandpaper in 1000, 1500, 2000, and 2500 grit, a small bottle of plastic polish, a polishing cloth, some latex gloves, and instructions.

Basically, you wet-sand the surface of the lens, starting with the 1000 grit and progressively going to finer paper, alternating directions with each grade.

Once you have gotten all the scratches out, and dry the lens, it looks cloudy, but smooth and no longer yellowed.

The kit suggests you then use the rag and the polish to polish out the haze created from the sanding. But since I had just bought the miniball, I thought I would use it with the polish instead. Heck my arm was already tired from all the sanding!

The results can be seen in the picture, though they are more dramatic in person. The lens on the left is after the polishing, and the one on the right is how they both looked before.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well they turned out. They look almost brand new. I think if I had done a little more wet sanding, I would say they would look like fresh from the factory.

So for a few bucks and a couple hours, you can fix those old nasty lenses and get back all the illumination you are supposed to have.

 

Nice, We do that at work all the time, when one headlight needs replaced on a car, the other is faded and we have to wet sand it, sometimes it takes 400grit to get it looking new, then top it off with a polisher, and its shiny as new!

 

My old headlights looked nasty too. I bought a pair of new headlights on ebay for $50. What a difference. I originally tried Meguiars Plast-X, but that didnt do anything for me.

 

yeah, my stockers were getting yellowish, i came across a deal, i got my clear headlights for $30

 

Bummer on that... could you explain your application process?

 

Sure, I just did what the back of the bottle told me to do.

 

lmao...

I just upgraded to Lightning headlights for the looks, and sold my perfect looking headlights/corners for $65
-Patrick

 

Can you elaborate? Wipe on wipe off? Rub? Any elbow grease?

 

You rolling your eyes at me?
I think it said to wipe it on and rub, then wipe off. I'll report back tomorrow after I read the bottle, im off to bed in a minute.
I was hoping it was magical, just squirt it on and hose it off and wha la, 8 years of wear and tear gone.

 

It's much more than a wipe on/wipe off product... in all honesty, I was trying to diagnose it a bit more to see if you had a bad bottle or if it was user error -- or maybe just beyond the capabilities of the product.

Very few 'dream boat' products out there. Most require *some* effort.

Good night.

 

MY buddy did Flitz on my old stock headlamps last spring to remove the nastyness of the winter, and wow what a difference it made. I also got my Lightning headlamps for the looks. Stockers are going back on when I sell the truck.

 

Hey WS6 Guy, does that mean your selling the truck soon? Just wondering because I am interested in picking up a pair of the Lightning headlamps.

 

rockpick, how do you advise to use meguiars plastic-x

 

He might be selling late spring early summer. And he is returning truck to stock so he can keep his mods

 

if i wanted to get the clear lenses like (built 54) has were do i find them? i looked on ebay and only found those dumb euro style. mine are quite faded also, im going to try the plastic polish but want a back up plan. thanks