Heres a quick DIY to help save your beat up tail lights. This was done on a 91 RS that had lived a few years under a tree so these definitely qualified as weathered.
Supplies
Bare tail lights
Assorted Water Proof Sand Paper (800, 1500, 2000)
Plastic polishing compound
Bleach
Laundry Detergent (not liquid kind)
Rags
Heres when they came off the car, the dark areas on the red of the tail light is mold not shadow so you can see how much grime was stuck in there.
Then I initially washed them out with soap and hot water, laid them flat and fill them with bleach so the inside has a good film on the entire light. The upper corners are a bit more difficult but just swish it around. Fill with hot water and let sit for awhile. I did this procedure twice to really break up the gunk. I also began to sand the lights with 800 grit as they were pretty beat up. The worse shape the lights the lower youll have to go to really get the imperfections out.
This is after two washing and bleaching cycles. Also to get the mold out of the tail lights i put a good amount of detergent in the light with just enough water to get it mobile. The abrasive action of the detergent lifted a lot of the mold up then just a lot of rinsing followed.
After 1500
2000
When they finally dry simply give them a good polishing with plastic compound and you will have restored your tail lights for roughly 20 dollars, thats less than youll pay at the junkyard for another set and they wont look half as good.
92-93 users note I have not tried this process on these tails and am not sure how the yellow would react but using the detergent will honestly do the job fine on its own but user beware.
Take your time and they will come out great, make sure to get them good and dry I put them in front of my furnace so it would draw out the humidity.
nice write up. i plan on doing the bleach thing to make my 50-50 lights white and red instead of pink and red. i will be using this when i get my tails and i’ll post up my results. what polish did you use?
I started with 1000 grit and then went to a 1500 and finished off with a 2000. They are so smooth and not a scratch on them. I spent about 20-30 minutes on each light and they came out great.
[QUOTE=unified112;2286676]Indeed… I’d start with 800 wet, then work to 1000 wet, then 1500 wet. That should make the scratches able to sand out by hand.
If not, go from 1500 to 2000 gritt…
100 gritt is WAY too coarse to start with.[/QUOTE]
That sounds like a good way. I did all my steps with the wet sanding. 800 would probably cut the time a little instead of starting with the 1000 grit.
It’s always better to start with a higher (smoother) gritt, and step down if needed…
You can always step down to something more rough if you need, but if you mess up and start with something too rough (ie 100 gritt) you can cause damage that can’t be fixed lol.
