I am in the process of cleaning and renewing my headlights using the Teg Tips renewing one piece headlight write up. I had to open my headlights because water has been leaking inside the headlights and it needed to be cleaned. There is a small area inside the passenger side headlight that I have not been able to clean/polish. I was wondering if anyone here could shed some light and give me some advice on how to clean this off. Look at the pictures below…
Thank you!
That looks like it’s dried on and clunky…
Have you tried using some goo gone? If it’s really not coming off you could look at the teg tips for restoring your 1pcs (using sandpaper and meguiar’s PlastX).
I have not… I have been really careful not to use any chemicals or anything that might be harmful in there. I don’t want to take the risk of ruining my headlights. I am using the teg tips to restore the outside of my headlights, but I didn’t want to sand the inside because it is only a small portion that will have to be sanded. I dont know if that would affect the overall look of the headlight and I would have to sand the whole thing inside. Also, it looks like a pain in the a$$ to sand the inside of those lights… Do you think goo gone is safe on that headlight plastic cover?
try using some good degreaser? like the castrol one or something? if anything, get them as clean as possible, then get them cleared… that’ll make the polishing job u did last a whole lot longer.
Do you think it will be safe to use degreaser like Simple Green? Like I said Im afraid to use chemicals in there and permanently ruin my lens…
It looks oxidized and a cleaner or solvent won’t fix that. I would try some rubbing compound on a terry rag.
Start in an obscure area which won’t really be noticeable if you can’t polish it out.
Thanks man! I’ll give that a try and see what happens. I have that red and white turtle wax rubbing compound. I’ll try them and see what happens. I’ll post an update later on…
a polishing compound would be a lil safer. but i’d still clear them afterwards.
easy fix
There is a product called “BLUE MAJIC” it works with little to no elbow grease.
Use this first then get back to the forum with an update.
Squeezethis- What would you recommend I use to clearcoat the lens? Like a regular clear gloss spray can?
trilib2000- I have that Blue Majic stuff! I used it to polish my air intake. I didn’t dare using that to clean it because I was afraid it would ruin my lens. I’ll give that a try.
I have been using the rubbing compound stuff and it is barely fading away. I’ll give that Blue majic a try and update.
Thanks for all the great advice so far!!
the better the clear the better and longer it will look clean. also if its cleared, you’d only need to keep waxing it to maintain it, not polish it.
the rubbing compound requires lots of work. if u have a polishing system, including the polisher/buffer, that would speed it up, but u can possibly melt the plastic if u stay in a spot too long or hit it in the wrong angle.
Ok so between the polishing compound and the Blue Magic I was able to get most of that off. It is not 100% clean, but almost. After all that was done I gave the lens a nice clearcoat. I let the lens dry for 24 hours and when I went back to check on it I noticed the clearcoat gave the lens a yellow tint :mad:
Now I have to basically do all that work all over again to remove the clearcoat. Is there a specific clearcoat I should get that will not turn yellow? Maybe I did something wrong and that made the lens turn yellow? I basically followed the teg tips and just added the clearcoat at the end. Look at the picture below. The lens I just did is the one on the left…
Wish I would have seen this earlier would have saved you the trouble. I learned about clearcoat yellowing from my modeling days.
FYI I did the outside of my one pieces over 2 years ago. Did not clearcoat, every quarter year or so I use meguairs plastic polish and they look wonderful.
the meguiars plastic polish is good n stuff but it works on headlights that aren’t severely F’D up. ummm on the clearcoat… did u use a rattle can type? cuz whenever we did this for like a bmw or mercedes headlights, we polished them up real well, we used the system one polishing system. then we hit it with automotive clear coat, like ppg ones n stuff. can’t use that nowadays cuz of the whole water based stuff.
maybe u should hit up a paint shop and ask them for a high quality clear coat that WILL NOT yellow afterwards. sorry it didn’t work out for u tho.
i found this article while searching on the web for the same thing, i havent tried it out yet, but will this, hope this helps
http://www.jdmchat.com/showthread.php?t=1982
im not sure if im allowed to give a link from a different forum, if not, im sorry ppl wont do it again, please do let me know if it is ok or not
if you want to use this as a sticky go for it
lol i just realsed the date posted lol sos
I just re-finished my 1piece lights, they had peeling/yellow clear coat and road rash. I wet-sanded using 800 then 1000, then 1500, then 2000 grit wet sandpaper. Sand in perpendicular direction to the grit before. (i.e 800 l-r, then 1000 up-down, etc) Keep the lenses WET. A final pass with meguiars plasticX and the lenses look brand new.
is there any other way of taking the headlight apart other then a heat gun or the oven? i dont have a heatgun and i dont like the idea of putting my headlights in the oven.