on today's episode of stauffer garage i'm going to show you guys how to
restore and renew your yellowed and scratched up headlights
and make them look like newer again
now there's going to be a few different products that you're going to need for
this video one is you're going to need some sort of
polisher whether it's a circular or a random orbital polisher and then we're
gonna need some sort of compounds that remove scratches for your paint
i'm using three different types here the first one is more of a harder cutting
compound you have a middle grade and then i have
a final finishing grade and then i also have a clear coat that we'll be applying
at the very end to protect that plastic surface and make
it last a longer period of time from degrading again
now the first step with this process is to actually sand down the top layer of
plastic on the surface all plastic headlights have some sort of
protective coating on them that gets yellowed cloudy
oxidizes and we need to sand that away because over time that'll actually cause
your headlight performance to degrade substantially so we're trying to bring
back that clear finish so that way your headlights perform like they did from
the factory
now to do that we're going to be wet sanding that surface with 800 grit first
and then we're going to be stepping up to a thousand grit and to be honest you
probably could jump up to a 2000 grit as well but since i was going to be
polishing with more of a harder compound i went ahead and just jumped right into
the polishing stage after wet sanding
now for everyone that doesn't understand the different designations for sandpaper
think of an 800 grit as a mild type sanding and then you have a thousand
grit which is a little bit less abrasive 2 000 is pretty much smooth as your
fingers and it gets less and less the higher the
number it goes and once you get up to about 2000 grit
the step from 2000 to a polisher is very minimal and that's the main purpose here
you're trying to do as much work with the sandpaper before jumping to the
polishing stage to get the headlights
clear
so
now if you're doing this yourself at this point you might be alarmed and
scared that you've caused more problems than good
but know that this is what it's supposed to look like it's supposed to look
cloudy like this it means that we've removed all of the
yellowing removed all of the different imperfections and that crack clear coat
that might be on your headlights and now you should probably have taped
off before but i'm doing it now because now it's time to take the polisher
and now remove all of these scratches and make the headlights look
crystal clear again
now i'm using a pretty stiff cutting pad which is designated with the orange
color and i'm using the cutting compound from chemical guys
and i'm putting about three or four pea-sized drops on the pad
and then i'm going to be dabbing it onto the headlight housing so that way when
you turn on the polisher it doesn't flick it everywhere
now because you are using a smaller circular polisher i
kept the speed about one and a half to two because you really didn't need a
higher level of speed because with it being plastic and not a painted surface
you don't want to cause additional marring or melting essentially of the
plastic that's why keeping the speed low and also moving the pad at a consistent
rate helps minimize the potential
you can see here just after one pass with the compound how much of the haze
we've removed with a single pass
so now we're going to do an additional pass on the rest of the cloudy area
before we do a final pass on the entire headlight as a whole
now on the internet if you just search clear headlights you'll find many
different ways and processes to do this there's going to be quick fixes like you
know using toothpaste wd-40 all of these different things
and those do work temporarily at a mild level
what they do is they kind of put a band-aid on it but they don't last more
than a week or two sometimes maybe even a month if you're lucky but what we're
trying to do here is we're trying to with this process remove the scratches
remove that top coat and then i'm going to be applying a
clear coat finish to it to renew that top level surface
there's also films that you can apply as well but for this job
i used a clear coat spray on that you guys will see in a later step
to protect the final coat and then i also applied a ceramic coating as well
so there's different things that you can do
in different processes you'll find some are better than others some are
also just different methodologies and for me personally this one works
best for me and if you want to take it to a next level putting on a plastic 3m
film or something like a clear bra is also a
beneficial and a good way to do it
now that we've done the major cutting it is time to do the final polishing stage
and this will get rid of any of those micro tiny scratches more like kind of
like think of swirl marks on your paint out of those headlights to make them
shine and get them perfectly ready for the clear coat finish
now all these products will be linked in the description box below and to be
honest they're not very expensive when you think about the
grand scheme of things and what you could also use these tools for
so if you're interested i'll have them all down below and make sure you guys
check them out if you want to clean up your headlights as well
now that the polishing is completely done before i remove the tape
i'm actually just using glass cleaner that i use for my windows which is
ammonia free to remove any remaining residue from the
polishing compound and also any grease or oils that are on
the surface
now because we are spraying clear coat i'm just using the painters plastic and
taping it down around the headlight and covering a
decent amount of the hood the front bumper and the fenders
so that way there's no over spray that gets onto those surfaces as well
now for the clear coat i applied a total of two coats and in between each one i
actually used my heat gun to aid with the drying process and you guys will see
in this shot that for the clear coat i was about four
to five feet away and i was keeping it moving very very
quickly and the main reason was to remove
a lot of the humidity that was in the air and to help with the drying process
between each coat
now following the instructions on my clear coat spray it does say let it have
about 24 hours to fully cure and because of that i actually had the
customer bring back the car the next day to then polish the headlight clear coat
but i polished it with a final cutting compound lightly on the clear coat
and then i applied my final ceramic
spray
now for all of you that are going to take on this job on your cars
make sure you just take your time don't be scared it's a very straightforward
process that if you follow the steps in my video
you guys can make your headlights look like brand new again just like these
before and after shots so if you guys are new and you haven't
subscribed smash it down below and i also want to let you know the guys that
i'm doing a labor day special on foxclean.com my detailing
product company and if you buy a set of detailing
brushes you get a gray and a blue microfiber towel to go with your package
to get your car looking clean and brand new again
so make sure you guys head over to foxclean to take advantage of that
labor day special and i will see you guys in the next video