92es300 Headlight Haze

[kcpth]

I hope I can contribute something to this club. It is not a big contributions and I know some info has been posted on it. But i hope the pictures help do those previous posts some justice. :D

To the moderators... i don't know if you want to leave this post here or if you want to move it to the tutorial section. Even though i don't think its a tutorial. I leave it in your hands.

But here goes. I bought a used 92ES300. I noticed some haziness on the headlights. When i purchased it i thought it was just some bird !Removed! that was left there <_< n i didn't think too much about it. So i thought i would clean it up when i brought it home.

I tried everything from just plain water, then water with some soap, and even tried Armor All's glass cleaner on it. Nothing can get it off. I can use my fingernails and run through it, and it seems cleaner on the parts i ran through. The next thing i did would be a big mistake. I tried to use the metal scrubs and i ended up scratching it up a bit. Instead of buying new headlights, i searched all over LOC and all over the web for some answers. I found a lot of helpful ideas all over the web and LOC starting with WETSANDING (don't know how to wetsand and i'm scared to screw up ) to Meguiars's products (Heard they use it for airplanes).

Naturally being cautious and cheap i just decided to go look at Meguiars's products. Each bottle cost me around $7. For some reason, some places on the web sells it for $10. I bought mine @ Napa (Searched Autozone, Walmart, K-mart, 2 Napa's, Advanced Auto Parts). The product bottle itself doesn't look promising compared to the other Meguiar's packaging and bottle look. I bought Meguiar's Clear Plastic Polish (it's number 10) (kinda bluish bottle product code is M-1008) and i also bought the Meguiars Clear Plastic Cleaner (Number 17) (white bottle and product code M-1708)**this is how the bottles looks like:

http://www.rightlook.com/browseproducts/Me...tic-Polish.html

http://www.rightlook.com/browseproducts/Me...ic-Cleaner.HTML

This is how my headlights look before.

If u take a look @ the middle picture, u can see it being really scratched up. Well i accidentally sprayed Brake Cleaner Fluid on the headlights and tried wiping it off and it screwed it up even more.

As you can see its pretty ugly.

Well what i did was first wash the plastic headlights. I dried it off and then i applied Number 17 (Clear Plastic Cleaner) first. Making circular motion till my hands got numb :P and then i took a soft cloth and whipped it off. Afterwards i applied Number 10 (Clear plastic Polish) and did the same circular motion and then wipped off. If you want to, use one of those buffing one, kinda looks like sheep hair and sometimes orange in color and just give it a quick buff N voa-la! **NOTE** u might want to put some tapes around the paint near the headlights. I'm not sure if it will do anything to the paint, but i don't think you want to risk it since taping newspaper around doesn't cost much compared to doing a new paint job. Another thing i want to add was that the Meguiar's Tech guy told me to not let any of them dry on the headlights. So i would suggest to scrub the whole thing with an applicator and work circular motion back and forth and up and down all in circular motion for about 1 min to 2 min. Don't forget to wipe off. Then do the same wit the polish.

Now notice the damage that i created with the Brake Cleaner is gone too or near gone. I barely even notice it when i'm looking at it. By cleaning this, my headlights look soooo much brighter. Well that and changing stock bulbs to SilverStar bulbs.

I believe it could have looked better if i used one of those buffing machines. Perhaps next week.

Good luck and i Hope this helps u all that have the same problem i did. B)

[IronWorker]

Nice work and instructions. Mine are starting to show early signs of hazing and this will come in handy in the future.

[steviej]

excellent contribution to the site, thank you.

I use the same Mequiars set up on my 02 ES.

If you really want to be daring and make the headlights glisten like crystal, take them off, bake them a little to separate the plastic and clean the insides as well.

This is an undertaking many have done and instuctions are in the pinned thread above about "clearing corners"

Either way, you did a great job on the polishing.

I will leave the thread here for a while as this is a common development with ES headlights. Eventually I will move it to the tutorial section as the pictures are very helpful.

steviej

[SKperformance]

Excellent work of pics.

A very valuable resource to newer members looking to restore tehir headlights.

High speed buffing should be left o experts only.It will make a huge difference but it spins fast enough to burn the paint off the bumpers in seconds.

[amf1932]

Nice job kcpth!

I used to use a low speed buffer to get the haze off plastic shields on some equipment I used in my business on automatic film processors.

Here's a link that I think will give you, or anybody else contemplating this type of job some idea how to do it. >>http://www.303products.com/main.php?infopage=cyclewinshields

[xxxavier2k]

That's some good stuff kcpth. Thanks

[DKRC-2003]

any information (especially with pics!) on how you fix or do something is valuable info. Especially the mistakes that you made and how you fixed them. Had the same problem w/ my lights and I reviewed every post that I could find before I tried anything that was questionable in my mind...