Headlight question.

[bobbylx]

OK, well I am wondering if I can save a buck or two here. My 88 LX has what I would guess are the orignal headlights or at least pretty old. The plastic lens' are pretty sun baked and don't have that nice clear appearance anymore. Is there any kind of cleaner or anything else I can do to make them look clear again? So far I have only found replacements that include the blinkers and fog lights and those things are pricey. Any suggestions?

 

[BlueThunder1988]

YES! Get a tube of toothpaste that is advertised as extra whitening and tartar control... use a cotton rag to buff the headlight with this.. there have been some recent posts where this worked really well.

 

[1fastfox]

i use 3M plastic cleaner but i heard that the meguires cleaner works better. any type of plastic cleaner should work. but check around with more people.

 

[Dr_EluSivE]

you can try cleaners, but that didnt really work for me. Water had gotten inside and pitted up the silvering on the reflector and they were pretty much a lost cause. You can try cleaners, but depending on whats wrong with em, youll have mixed results

Dr.

 

[BlueThunder1988]

you can try cleaners, but that didnt really work for me. Water had gotten inside and pitted up the silvering on the reflector and they were pretty much a lost cause. You can try cleaners, but depending on whats wrong with em, youll have mixed results

Dr.

Yes, plastic polishes (including toothpaste!) can clean up a yellowed surface but they won't help a bit if the reflector has been damaged...

 

[JamesBaumann]

All I did to mine was take some turtle wax polishing compound, smear it on there and buff it off. It made a big difference for me. I'd recommend using an electric drill with a buffing pad on the end of it for this job. The only thing that you have to look out for when using an electric drill is the little plastic nipples that portrude from the plastic headlight exterior. There is three of them I believe, two on top and one on bottom. I just did mine by hand and it makes a considerable difference, so I can only imagine what an electric buffer would do to them. Another thing you can do is take some fine grit sandpaper, (somewhere around 200 grit) and rub them down. You want to be careful that the grit isn't too low, because then you'll scratch them up and damage them irreversibly. Somewhere between 200-300 should work good. The last thing I did was put a couple coats of hardshell wax on there, just to try to give them a little more shine. But yes, polishing compound, some 200-300 grit sandpaper, a bit of wax and about 45 minutes - an hours time should make them a lot better. They wont be as good as new, but it'll be an improvement. Hope this helps, good luck, and be sure to let us know what worked the best so it'll give us other guys some more tips and ideas.

 

[JamesBaumann]

Oh, one more thing, this technique works really good on the taillights as well. It shined mine up a lot.