Hey guys I just did a full polish on the 99 GSR I picked up last week, and part of the detailing that I did was getting rid of the oxidation in/on the headlights.
Here is what they looked like before

This is very typical with the plastic headlights on most Hondas, especially as they start to get up there in years. However it is very simple to correct. for this project you will need, A good car wash soap, detailing clay, a good high grit wet sand paper (I used Meguiars 1500 Unigrit), a buffer, a polishing pad, heavy and lite cut polishes.
Here is the process.
1) wash with the car wash soap

2) Clay the surface. I used Clay Magic blue with a little Meguiars quick detailer for lube. (hahaha LUBE!)

3) wash away the residue with the same wash soap

4) Color sand that biznitch. This is the tricky part. First of all you should soak your sandpaper for at least a couple hours before using it. ALWAYS use a sanding block, and sand in the same direction. This will help to prevent overlapping scratches and give you better results when you polish out the scratches. Most importanly don't touch the surrounding paint with your sandpaper, you might even want to tape it off

5) wipe away residue with a damp towel and check your progress. If you have a nice uniform cloudiness with no hint of the yellowing from earlier proceed to the next step. If not keep sanding.

6) Dry the surface completely and plug in your buffer. I used a Makita 9227C however you can use just about any buffer laying around, or if you have a WHOLE LOT of free time you can do it by hand. Take your heavy cut polish (I used Optimum Compound) and polish away the haze leftover from sanding, don't stay in one place too long or you will burn through the plastic. just nice even strokes. I was polishing at 1500 rpm. Pause and feel the surface if it is hot take a break and let it cool down. Polish until the lens is clear.

7) Follow up with your final polish at a slower speed and your now done, with some super clear headlights.


A word of caution. These headlights have a UV coating on the outside, the yellowing or corrosion of the lens is the UV coating breaking down. Sanding the headlight completely removes this UV coating and you will have to use a sealant or something similar in order to prevent it from yellowing again. I just paint sealant from Poorboy's called EX-P.

Side by side.
Before:

After:


If you have any questions please ask. Next week a friend of mine is coming over to have his headlights done and I will try to take pictures of the process.

 

unless there were pits and scratches in the headlights, Plasti-X works just as well for cleaning up the yellowing!

 

I actually tried plastx on the passenger side and while it did clear up some of the yellowing I thought that they were not at 100%, so wetsanding (to me) is the next most aggressive step.

 

anyone know a way to clean the glass HEADLIGHT restoration?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by DJNauTicz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">anyone know a way to clean the glass HEADLIGHT restoration?</TD></TR></TABLE>

wondering the same

 

To do the same thing on glass headlamps you use the same process however instead of color sanding the lamps you use a small polishing pad and an electric drill. There is a very good kit available through a company called Diamondite and can be viewed here http://www.diamondite.com/diam....html It is a little pricey but the results can't be beat.

 

ok im stuck at the place where my headlights have so much scratches on them from wet sanding(i dont know what grit)... i tried to buff it with my crappy buffer with some kind of blue goo my friend uses but the scratches are still there and theyre very foggy.


can you help me out?? is it because my buffer doesnt go that fast or what?? or is it the sand paper?

 

You are probably using to low of a grit of sandpaper. Check the back of it and it should say the grit. For mine I used 1500. 1500 sanding marks are pretty much the lowest that can be buffed out with my rotary polisher. If you are still having problems try using 1500 then step it up to 2500 or even 3000 these marks will be a whole lot easier to buff out.
You also have to use a dedicated polish, I am not quite sure what you mean by "blue goo" but it doesn't sound like polish. A good OTC polish would be Diamond cut from Meguiars, or even #83 Dual Action Cleaner Polish.
Hope it works out man.
If you are in SoCal I will help you out if you want.

 

go ge<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by deckster333 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

wondering the same</TD></TR></TABLE>


go get the opti something headlight cleaner, you get 5 pads and it worked on my crx, used 3 total....cost 10 bucks, get at walmart, autozone, etc. Its a small rectangle black? box