Clean Headlights.

[Mr Morlock]

You can polish them with car polish and this works very well but do not over do it with a heavy cut. The polycarbonate lenses are coated at time of manufacture but they tend to deteriorate with time and weathering.

[philz]

mothers plastic polish

[Jeo]

mothers plastic polish

+1

[bruce]

Inside?

[sliq]

on NB's, you'll have to rip off the front bar to clean the lights from the inside.

[Mr Morlock]

You clean the lense from the outside. The lense is hot melt glued to the housing.

[GP]

Brasso works a treat

[16bit]

going to give mine a go with micro fibre this weekend.

[irwin83r]

mothers plastic polish

+1

+2

on the outside

[PUR157]

Just make sure you don't jump straight to the most abrasive compound you have... I've read that it's best to work your way up to consecutively rougher compounds if you find the finer ones don't work... coz then you'd just spend the rest of the day polishing back the swirls

[sliq]

on NB's, you'll have to rip off the front bar to clean the lights from the inside.

is there a tutorial anywhere? coz im sure most of the grime is on the inside. but i cnt get to that anyway can i.

from big forum

[Mr Morlock]

Gents trust me- this is just a case of applying a light polish to a cloth rub on and rub off- apply again if not satisfied- but do not rip it into it- you do not want to completely remove the unseen hard coating on the lenses which provide long term life. I recently did this on badly weathered headlamp lenses on a Festy and the job was done in 5 minutes. It is the same process as polishing your paintwork. As an aside I have often seen taillight lenses buffed to remove marks in OE manufacture and it recovers otherwise reject parts. Too easy they say.

[irwin83r]

here. before and after shots using mothers plastic on the out side only. pretty good results considering i done a very half assed job. if you shake the bottle well do it in the shade when the surface is cool and apply loads of elbow grease aswell as doing it two or three times in the one sitting you should end up with even better results.






if you can avoid taking the lenses off avoid it. condensation on the inside of your lights looks terrible and isnt easy to get rid of. but if you have to polish the inside (i cant see why) then you'll have to... just be carefull and make sure you get a really good seal when putting it all back together.

yes my car needs a bath... badly

[Mr Morlock]

The weathering on your lenses occurs on the outside not the inside. Your lens are hot melt glued into a glue track and they are leak tested at the manufacturing point. If you heat and remove the lens you seriously run the risk of no longer having a leak free glue track- the headlamps were never designed to be serviced ( apart from bulb replacement) and that is why you cannot buy a lense separately. If a headlamp has excessive moisture in it this may be because of some damage or deterioration to the glue track or as with most headlamps a breather is blocked- lamps breathe they are not simply fully sealed as the air inside when heated expands and contracts when it cools thus it can suck in some moisture. The sun usually sorts out moisture fairly quickly. Incidentally you cannot buy the engineering hot melt that the manufacturer originally used which is a product that has a tight spec. Lenses are treated in principle like plastic lenses in spectacles- they are coated for durability and removing that coating or scratching it excessively shortens the life. Polish rejuvenates plastics and paint- restoring gloss but you do not use a heavy polish on old thin paint and the same with the lenses.

[wun911]

tooth paste...