After installing the LED headlight bulbs in the Scion the next thing was to restore the headlight housings to their former clearness. I had a couple of headlight restore kits in the storage trailer that I hadn't gotten around to using so I figured now would be as good a time as ever to bring them out and give them a try.
The first kit was one that we got from a regular auto parts store some time ago. It consisted of a couple of pieces of sandpaper, one of a rough grit around 500 or so and a fine grit of around 3000. Also included was a polishing cloth and a little bottle of polish. I tried this one first since it was the oldest but soon found out this was fruitless as the polish was almost like water. Plus since this required elbow grease, getting the desired effect would be rather difficult. I moved on to the newer and more "modern" kit. This kit came from Harbor Freight (Don't you just love this place?) and includes a sanding head that goes in a power drill and three different sets of sanding discs; 500, 800, nd 3000 grit. A small roll of masking tape is included for masking around he headlight so the sanding doesn't hit the car's paint. There's also a buffing pad and a tube of polish for the finish work. I followed the instructions, masking the headlight and taking my time with the drill speed and wetting the sandpaper by dunking the head into a bucket of water every few seconds as I sanded the headlight, going through all three sanding wheels in the process. The kit includes enough sanding wheels to ensure you get your headlights done. I wet the buffing head then applied some polish and commenced to polishing the headlight body. After a few passes the surface came out pretty good. It's not exactly like a brand new out of the box headlight housing but it's a hell of a lot better than how it was before I touched it. With the whole process down in my head I was able to quickly get the other side done. Of course with the polishing came cleanup work since there was splattered polish all over the car's body, nothing the hose couldn't handle. All in all this process is almost the same as finishing a new paint job. Instead of sanding orange peel from the clear coat and buffing and polishing to a shine I'm sanding the faded outer layer of plastic then sanding the micro scratches and buffing everything to a shine. If you have faded headlights you definitely have to try this and save yourself the hassle of paying someone an arm and a leg to do exactly this same work or replacing the headlight housings completely.
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