Headlight nubs

[WindyCity]

Does anyone know if the alignment dolls on headlights have any purpose after the cars come from the factory? I am thinking of grinding them off prior to a headlight restoration but I dont know if they still need them to align the headlights at all? It is a real pain to polish around them and I did tear up my orange pad when i accidental hit the nub.

 

[wmdnc]

One thing you do not want to do is grind these off. Unless you know of a shop that uses an optical headlight aligner vs. the old stick on ones, you wont be able to align your headlights after you grind them. I've run accross this problem before and I know how much of a pain it is One thing I've found that helps is if you can remove the headlight tubs from the vehicle (without tearing most of it apart), that should give you a bit more room to work. Whenever I have a customer that needs a refinish done, I pull the tubs and do the job on a bench, providing the tubs come out fairly quickly.

 

[belcherm58]

Does anyone know if the alignment dolls on headlights have any purpose after the cars come from the factory? I am thinking of grinding them off prior to a headlight restoration but I dont know if they still need them to align the headlights at all? It is a real pain to polish around them and I did tear up my orange pad when i accidental hit the nub.

I take it you are using a PC to buff them? I bought one of the 2 3/4 inch LC backing plates and a drill adapter. it is much easier to avoid the nubs when doing this with a drill. The 4 inch orange pads fit this backing plate fine for this kind of buffing. I needed a solution to be able to correct other peoples headlights and grinding nubs was not an option. :xyxthumbs:

 

[wmdnc]

Just another thought on this for you. 3M makes a single use headlight buffing kit that works very well. I purchased the pro kit awhile back and love it, but the cost may be too much for someone to justify if you only do headlights every now and then. The single use kit usually runs around $18-$20, and you can pick them up on ebay, (link: 3M Headlight Lens Restoration System Repair/Restore/Car:eBay Motors (item 110400382117)

Biggest thing with these kits that I have found vs the pro version is you need to spend a bit more time sanding to get all the imperfections out. The pro kit comes with a wider assortment of sanding pads, but the single shot kits work pretty damn well IMO.

Hope that helps!!

 

[97zman]

I have used the single use kits a couple of times. They worked real well for me and my headlights were very bad. You can get them at about any auto parts store here.