Started polishing my friend's 1998 Civic headlights tonight, these things were nanannnasty!!! They were so yellow and faded that it was downright dangerous to drive at night with these things. I've gont one mostly done so far, here's a comparison:

After wetsanding, before polishing


After polishing

 

Did you use 3M plastic polish after you wet sanded it? What grit did you use?

 

Wow! That looks pretty good, lets see pics of it put on.

 

Because these were so bad, I had to start with 220-grit, then 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, then finally 2000. Then I used Mother's Metal Polish, then Meguiar's DACP, then P21S on various pads on my Porter Cable buffer.

There are still some light scratches remaining, I'll probably go back again with 3000-grit and polish them again.

 

i flitz my headlights!! but seriously it look like 5 minutes and they look like new. haha. but this way is probably better.

 

sweet jesus!!!! i never belived you would be able to make them even halfway usable much less like new!!! and dangerous to drive with those was an undestatement to say the least! i had to get oem fog just to see at night

 

i had to do the same thing with my dc5. the headlights were way too nasty. i used 600, 1000, 200, then some of those mothers polish. things came out clean like it was brand spankin new.

 

that came out good

 

Can you give us the run down on the procedure? I.E- Sanding in one direction? Heavy or light pressure applied with sandpaper? I did this same thing with my old ep3 and they came out like crap, the sand marks remained after an hour of polishing..Looks great btw

 

Yes I have also done it by hand in the past, for the polishing, but I truly believe the secret is using a powered buffer, a Porter Cable in my case. Also you need to use many grades of sandpaper, and do each successive step in a perpendicular direction from the previous step.

I suppose I used quite a bit of pressure, as my arm got pretty dang tired. I also used a rubber sanding block for the first time, instead of just holding the sandpaper in my hands. That was nice, because in the past my fingers always start bleeding after gripping those sandpapers and working with them for awhile.

 

just did this to my homes 97 aftermarket headlights used 200 grit, and a 3/4 inch grinder with polishing pad atatchment and turtle wax... they look like new!... needless to say i took apart my jdm headlights for my dc2 to repeat the process

 

looks good

 

pics of the car?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by kageon1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Wow! That looks pretty good, lets see pics of it put on.</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

I had the same problem with my 96 sedan. I just used rubbing compund on the orbital and finished it off with Plastic-X or something.

 

good looken out on your homie

 

Mothers metal polish

 

I am working on this myself. Got mine wet sanded just need to buff. BTW looks alot better.

 

Remember everyone, the Rubbing Compound is the key to having it shiny as hell!

 

why would u use metal polish on something not metal? yes it takes stains out etc... but regular polish is better suited for this!

 

nice

 

they came out pretty nice

 

they came out good

 

looks almost new

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ECKOTYPER &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">just did this to my homes 97 aftermarket headlights used 200 grit, and a 3/4 inch grinder with polishing pad atatchment and turtle wax... they look like new!... needless to say i took apart my jdm headlights for my dc2 to repeat the process </TD></TR></TABLE>

Did you mean to say 2000 grit? I don't think any polish would take out scratches left by 200-grit sandpaper.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ECKOTYPER &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">why would u use metal polish on something not metal? yes it takes stains out etc... but regular polish is better suited for this!</TD></TR></TABLE>

I don't know if it was necessary, but I figured the metal polish was the most abrasive product I had (not sure, now that I have the DACP which I only just recently picked up).