Headlight Restoration

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flyinbryan

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I had done this last summer and thought i'd bring it to these forums.

I have had plan's to Joey Mod my headlight's with BMP for a few weeks now, well before embarking on that Project I Wanted to try and get the Lenses looking somewhat decent before I tore them apart to Joey Mod them.
" Joey Mod " is painting the inside of the headlight housing to get rid of all the chrome.

I had stopped by the local Part's store looking for A varitety pack of wet sanding paper. I found what I was exspecting to find large 12x12 sheet's in a pack of 5 of each grit, way more then what I needed & way more then I wanted to spend. I told the sales guy that I was looking to wet sand & buff out my headlight's, he replied with we have A specific Headlight restore kit. I was glad to hear that. The maker is permatex & here is the part #09135. Im sure most major parts stores could order it



The Kit comes with 1,000/1,500/2,000,2,500 Grit sandpaper, A 1oz bottle of platic Polish, Rubber gloves and A polishing Cloth. All the products worked great, but you wont get very good results with the Polish unless you have A Buffer. I Polished till I thought my hand was gonna fall of and it looked better but you could still see the sanding marks from the 2,500 grit. The rotary buffer made short work of polishing them out maybe 2-3 minutes max. Overall I am very happy with the results, There are a few deep knicks left but I used the paper till it started to break apart, but im sure if you had more paper or say 800 grit to start you could get everything out. I used 1 kit for each light and they were $13.99

The passenger headlight before

Before

Before

Headlight Restore Kit & the drink of the day.

The Paper included in the Kit.

The WET in wetsanding, by far the easiest way to do it.
 
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Vertical sanding with 1,000 Grit.

1,500 Grit sideway's

2,000 Grit Vertical

2,500 Grit sideways


When wet sanding I sanded untill I could not see the sandingmarks from the previous direction.

Here is A picture of bout 30 seconds worth of buffing with the Buffer. I chose to remove the bumper when buffing, you can get down to the edge of the light better without worrying about burning the paint.


Here are A few Afters




Any Comment's or questions are welcome. =)
 
I agree nice work:applause:

One ? how long did the entire process take on both headlights?
 
supercharged said:
Great job! Two thumbs up! How was that beer?
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I probably spent 1 1/2 hrs sanding then probably 5 minutes buffing per light. I was mostly trying to get all the nics out.

The Beer was awesome, same company that makes fat tire but this is there seasonal summer release.
 
flyinbryan said:
I probably spent 1 1/2 hrs sanding then probably 5 minutes buffing per light. I was mostly trying to get all the nics out.

The Beer was awesome, same company that makes fat tire but this is there seasonal summer release.
Click to expand...
:p
 
Those lights look good, question though. The process doesn’t seem that bad but was removing the bumper really necessary? Just wondering another question is when you said "buffing" what did you use PC, rotary, hand?

Like I said the lights look really good and it's something I do in the near future...mmm...actually I could use it now.
 
So, I see that you have been to VWvortex. Huh?:D

Nice work. I have my stock headlights off the car and a new set of GLI lights on the Jetta. I need to polish up the stock ones, joey them and sell them.

My dad's Subaru also needs to be polished.
 
hasn't this been posted before?

but yeah, great job!

just out of curiousity, why did you remove the bumper instead of just taking the lights out?
 
Frugle said:
just out of curiousity, why did you remove the bumper instead of just taking the lights out?
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I can answer this for him being a fellow MKIV VW owner.

The bumpers on our cars, his being a GTI/Golf and mine being a Jetta, takes all of 5 minutes. Snap out the grille, take off about 15 screws or so and it comes right off. Plus, you have to take the bumper off to remove the headlights anyway.
 
I had the headlights in & out painting the insides, and that is why the bumper was off.

I used a rotary with A whool pad only thing i could find at the time.

Not sure if it had been posted before but has alot of look i waxed my car threads w/ the same wax as another post. just thought I would share my results.
 
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