before and after pics of refurbed prefacelift headlights

AARON77

AARON77

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manged to sort it its AMAZING what a bit of wet n dry(1200) and some auto glym paint restorer can do

BEFORE
1188e148.jpg

AFTER
d76b5497.jpg
 
what did you use mate? where did you get the items from? i need this done soon but not sure where to get the parts?
 
WET N DRY SANPAPER (GRADE 1200) AUTO GLYM PAINT RESTORER, ALL FOR LESS THAN A TENNER IN HALFORDS, GET IN THERE
ITS A DODDLE JUS MAKE SURE U SOAK THE SANPAPER THEN RUB THEM DOWN FOR ABOUT TEN MINUTES ????
THEN CLEAN AND POLISH
 
2000 would do even better takes a bit longer but it's worth it. they look really good mate
 
Excellent work mate, looks really good, might need to put that on my list of things to do!!
 
on a side note, i know that most headlight restoration kits have a sealer wipe. do you guys know anything that would be any good? i am thinking of doing the lamin-x on them but i dont want to have any drop in light output.
 
Does this make any difference to the brightness? I know it may sound like a stupid question but the bloke who does all the work on my car said they would be brighter if I cleaned up the glass?

My bulbs are pathetic even though there xenon's :(
 
I had a failed attempt at this on friday night!

This is before:

33e6ddc8.jpg


Masked up the body work round the light:

02d2c0cc.jpg


Then got to work:

1d4f2cc9.jpg


The after shot doesn't look any different. If anything, it looks worse!!!

f215041b.jpg
 
audi upgrades
audi upgrades
Well, I don't know what the secret is guy's, but I've tried it on one of mine and personally I don't see any difference - in fact maybe a bit worse.......And I used 2000 grade.

Is there something obvious you are all not telling us or do you have shares in auto-glym ?

I was pressing very hard with the polish/restorer application on a lint free cloth.
 
I'm glad i'm not the only one having issues!

S3baby said he had to get some scratches out of a plastic fish tank before and it went cloudy like the above pics. He then had to use some brass polish to restore the shine. I'll be trying this tomorrow evening so I'll let you know how it goes.
 
I used some stuff that you detail cars with to get rid of swirl marks etc. worked well but took agges by hand.
 
Guys you're not going to get 1200 grit sanding marks out of paint with hand polishing and AutoGlym rubbish. Let alone plastic! When I wet sand cars as part of my detailing it's 2000->3000 then machine polished.

The haze you have will take hours of elbow grease to come out by hand!!
 
Mine took all of 10/15 minutes per light and the results were ace ????? Even after 2 weeks and over a 1000 miles
Hope u guys get it sorted????
 
Had another crack at this last night and "Brasso" is the secret!

S3baby had read on the net about how plane engineers use the technique of wet and dry and brasso on the plastic windows when they get scratched.

Anyway this was after 10-15 mins and it looks much better already:

fa3d1330.jpg
 
When i read westle’s post i thought “you must have either used the wrong grit wet/dry or just bodged it”.


So i had a go myself and all i can say is sorry , because the same thing happened to me......LOL



I first cleaned up the headlights and soaked both 1200 and 1500 grit wet/dry in some soapy water. once soaked i started sanding the headlights with the 1200 and they looked terrible , so i moved on to the 15 with the same effect.


I then thought don't panic they'll look ok after the polish but no they looked all fogged up. I persevered but no matter what i tried i couldn't get them to even look as good as they did before i started.


So i went to my local car shop and explained what i did and said that i had missed the step about using rubbing compound.



I bought some not thinking it wouldn't work but it did :)



This is what they looked like before i started:



img2011041500001.jpg




This is what they looked like after the wet/dry and polish:



img2011041500004edit.jpg





And this is what they look like now:



img2011041500016.jpg
 
ok so i saw this thread last night and as i got advised i would need new headlights for my next mot due to discolouration i paid a little visit to halfords this morning, i was slightly nervous doing the work but it turned out very well...

before, the camera doesnt really show how bad they were they had light a yellow tint to them

SSL23647Medium.jpg

SSL23648Medium.jpg


and after, they are like new

SSL23651Medium.jpg

SSL23653Medium.jpg


and just cos im posting pictures, heres one of my refurbished wheels which were done yesterday
SSL23657Medium.jpg
 
Wow, I am impressed how the headlights are looking after this method.

One of mine is is starting to look a bit dodgy, and the other one is still in very good condition so it stick out quite a bit, I thought ii may need to buy a new headlight, or would need machine polishing.

I would like to give this a go tomorrow buy hand. I will get some, WET N DRY Sand Paper Grade 1200, masking tape, would I need Brasso? or paint restorer?

Thanks
 
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