V8V headlight restoration
Discussion
I finally got round to sorting out my headlights. From a distance and washed, they looked great, however, close up I wasn't happy with them.
First job was masking off the aperture with AMR coloured tape and then out came the 3m wet & dry. I started with 600 and then up to 1000, 1500, 2500 and finally 3500 grades to get the lenses as blemish free as possible. There's a protective coating on the lenses from factory and this all needs to be sanded off.
Plenty of water with a few drops of Fairy Liquid helped the job along. You can see the old protective coating gradually being sanded away until an even finish appears.
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/XXjcJYci[/url]
Once both lights had been gone over with gradually finer grades of paper and a smooth even finish all over, I then got out my DA polisher and some polishing compound on a soft pad. To be honest I wasn't 100% happy with the finish. A good test is to look at the LED light reflection in the lens - it should be nice and sharp.
The legend that is Paddy advised a coarser cutting compound on a medium pad and this really helped get the sparkle I was looking for. I finally finished off with a soft pad and polishing compound and am extremely happy with the results. The front of the car needs a good wash to remove the sanding residue and the final step will be fitting PPF, which I'll do before washing.
A very satisfying job that takes time and patience but gives excellent results.
First job was masking off the aperture with AMR coloured tape and then out came the 3m wet & dry. I started with 600 and then up to 1000, 1500, 2500 and finally 3500 grades to get the lenses as blemish free as possible. There's a protective coating on the lenses from factory and this all needs to be sanded off.
Plenty of water with a few drops of Fairy Liquid helped the job along. You can see the old protective coating gradually being sanded away until an even finish appears.
[url]|https://thumbsnap.com/XXjcJYci[/url]Once both lights had been gone over with gradually finer grades of paper and a smooth even finish all over, I then got out my DA polisher and some polishing compound on a soft pad. To be honest I wasn't 100% happy with the finish. A good test is to look at the LED light reflection in the lens - it should be nice and sharp.
The legend that is Paddy advised a coarser cutting compound on a medium pad and this really helped get the sparkle I was looking for. I finally finished off with a soft pad and polishing compound and am extremely happy with the results. The front of the car needs a good wash to remove the sanding residue and the final step will be fitting PPF, which I'll do before washing.
A very satisfying job that takes time and patience but gives excellent results.
Edited by JonnyCJ on Friday 15th October 12:44
JonnyCJ said:
Not yet - after opening up the package I discovered micro dust particles in the film. I’m in discussions with the supplier at the mo - given they were £48 for two small pieces of PPF.
Very pleased to report that they're sending me a replacement set FOC without any quibbles. It's XPEL Ultimate - which gets a very good write up. That'll give me the original set to practise with.Finally got the job finished. As I had 2 sets of PPF courtesy of XPEL I had a go with the first set myself. Not sure whether the alcohol/water ration was wrong in the spray bottle, but I didn't;t do a very good job. Ended up stripping it off and took it to Adam at Elite Films on The Wirral. He did a great job with the second set and the results are now as good as new and very well protected.
nice work with the PPF film, I guess when you want to keep such car for many more years its the better solution, next time its only replacing the PPF film, instead of sanding all again.
Mostly people spray a protection film on the lenses, or what I did a few weeks ago, helping my old neighbor, doing such with a soft pad and the protective film/spray came out a plastic bag... he bought that set for 5 euro...lol,
so sanding it all (lots of work because someone painted a old film long time ago on those lenses with drips in it...so a thick layer to sand of...) and then the protecting film...which you had to put on the lens with some cotton pad... I thought, will that ever work?
but it went very well, they looked as new afterwards, did not hoped it would became that good, also the garage were that old neighbor always goes to, said, you have to replace those headlights (not expensive on that Hyundai Getz) but when the neighbor went to that same garage a week after for its APK (TUV) the garage boss said, sow... that turned out well :-)
Mostly people spray a protection film on the lenses, or what I did a few weeks ago, helping my old neighbor, doing such with a soft pad and the protective film/spray came out a plastic bag... he bought that set for 5 euro...lol,
so sanding it all (lots of work because someone painted a old film long time ago on those lenses with drips in it...so a thick layer to sand of...) and then the protecting film...which you had to put on the lens with some cotton pad... I thought, will that ever work?
but it went very well, they looked as new afterwards, did not hoped it would became that good, also the garage were that old neighbor always goes to, said, you have to replace those headlights (not expensive on that Hyundai Getz) but when the neighbor went to that same garage a week after for its APK (TUV) the garage boss said, sow... that turned out well :-)
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