$8.99 Headlight Restore

I picked up a headlight restore kit from a Harbor Freight sale awhile back. It comes with a two sanding discs of an unspecified very fine grit, one polishing pad disc, a backing attachment to mount the discs to your drill, and a bottle of polishing compound.

Here's the before pics...

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/j...o/10ae/074.jpg



http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/j...o/10ae/072.jpg


The directions say to use the sanding discs for 3 minutes on each headlight.

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/j...o/10ae/076.jpg

Followed by another 3 minutes with the polishing pad and liberal amounts of polishing compound. After the sanding disc step, the headlights actually look worse than before, but you can run your hand over the two headlights and feel the difference. After the polishing compound goes on, the results are 100% better.

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/j...asParty006.jpg

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/j...asParty007.jpg

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/j...asParty005.jpg

I did the first headlight twice, mainly because I was a little intimidated by the idea of taking a sanding disc to the plastic lens and wasn't aggressive enough to remove the pitting in the plastic, so there was still a light haze left after polishing it the first time.

For around $3 a very little elbow grease, you can pick up a bottle of "plastic polisher" from Autozone and achieve the same result. I polish those headlights every 6 months or so. They never get a clear as when brand new but is close.

yeah. i have some 3m plastic cleaner and polish. 1 bottle of each has lasted me years, and cleans all plastics- rear window included!