02 Protege5 Headlight Haze before and after...
- Thread starter domingo79
- Start date
Yeah,I had eyelids before that I took off when I blacked out the housings.I guess the hazing and oxidation was really bad and the 5 min. stuff was not enough.
Hi guys, I recently bought an '02 MP5 and it had pretty foggy headlights. I didn't buy a kit, but fortunately for me I found a plastic restorer kit at my work. Just wanted to post my results. (drinks) The kit came with wet sandpaper ranging from 1500 to 6000. I started with an 800 (not in the kit). The whole process took hours, I'm too ashamed to post the actual time. =(
justanothermp5
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yea well i did this but i used a different kit from autozone
it comes with like 2 peices of 1000 grit and 2 pieces of 2500 grit, and two packages of some crap u put on the headlihts, idk what it was but man did it work good, took me about 2 minutes overall time, had to do the drivers headlightagain cuz water got on it while the stuff i put on it was stil drying leaving waterspots
20 bucks for the kit ut it works, just gotta make sure u sand alot with the 1000 and then alot alot with the 2500 lol
it comes with like 2 peices of 1000 grit and 2 pieces of 2500 grit, and two packages of some crap u put on the headlihts, idk what it was but man did it work good, took me about 2 minutes overall time, had to do the drivers headlightagain cuz water got on it while the stuff i put on it was stil drying leaving waterspots
20 bucks for the kit ut it works, just gotta make sure u sand alot with the 1000 and then alot alot with the 2500 lol
Sooo i did this today with Meguiars plastx.. worked very nicely. my headlights were ******. from scrathes to haze. all i did was clean the headlights with de-greaser to clean them. then used the plastx with a foam applicator scrubber thing. you gotta put some pressure on it. also use a lil at a time in a lil space. gunna have to apply 5-10 depending on your headlights. also like said before patience!!! took me over 1 hour for just the right headlight!! worth it tho gunna do another coat tomorow. so take your time scrub hard and do a lil area at a time here are the before and after.
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Sooo i did this today with Meguiars plastx.. worked very nicely. my headlights were ******. from scrathes to haze. all i did was clean the headlights with de-greaser to clean them. then used the plastx with a foam applicator scrubber thing. you gotta put some pressure on it. also use a lil at a time in a lil space. gunna have to apply 5-10 coats depending on your headlights. after each coat rub of excess with lint free cloth also like said before patience!!! took me over 1 hour for just the right headlight!! worth it tho gunna do another coat tomorow. so take your time scrub hard and do a lil area at a time here are the before and after. good luck (boom08)
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well it was a 2002 and i kind was a lil ruff with them..dont wana talk about it haha. its all good they look good. excpet there looks like theres a lil left over residue just might be mine. dont feel like i got a good finsish polish with it cause i did it by hand. i want to use a polish drill thing...dont have one..
i used to be a plastX believer, and i thought the results i was getting were good. but my headlights were never truely clear. they always still had a haze to them even after going at with plastX over and over and over. ill try to be as objective as possible, but plastX to me, is pretty much useless, and what im going to show, is evidence to support my reasoning. this is a 2000 civic ex. Its a detail i just got done with. the car is sitting in my garage right now ready to be picked up tomorrow.
before. obviously the headlights are yellowed with haze
this is the first product i used. XMT3 on a medium cut orange pad via a UDM
before
50/50
i worked the polish in at 4.5-5k rpms until the polish had broken down
here it is once again for reference
plastX on a foam applicator.
after plastX. obviously it removed some of the yellow haze, but the headlight wasnt crystal clear.
so here it is. the leftside is plastX, you can see where the tape was, thats the remaining haze, and on the right is where i polished it.
here it is all done. this was the results of a single pass of XMT3 on orange, and a single pass of XMT1 on orange. XMT1 is just a finer polish, that takes longer to break down, and results in essentially being able to remove more haze before it breaks down, however it has less cut then XMT3 which is why i started with a heavier cut, and worked my way down.
side by side.
the car itself recieved a single pass of meguiars 83 cleaner polish (which has a similar cut to XMT3) and was sealed with megs 21 synthetic sealant. the whole polishing process took about 6-7 hours.
PlastX as an over the counter product is good, but there are alternatives that yield much better results. Wetsanding is the best option to fix headlights. wetsanding removes the pitting scratches, which is something that the polishes i used and plastx cannot do.
if you are to wetsand your headlights, this is the process i would use.
2 passes 1000 grit (depending on how bad your headlights are with pitting and scratches. if your not comfortable using 1000 then dont)
if they arent terrible, start with 2000 grit sandpaper then work your way to 2500. after that youll need something of a similar cut to the XMT3 that i used. the best way to do this is with a random orbital polisher. its impossible to yield these results by hand.
if machine polishing isnt your thing, and you dont want to spend that kind of money for just your headlights there really isnt anything wrong with plastX. it does what it says it does... but there are other options.
before. obviously the headlights are yellowed with haze
this is the first product i used. XMT3 on a medium cut orange pad via a UDM
before
50/50
i worked the polish in at 4.5-5k rpms until the polish had broken down
here it is once again for reference
plastX on a foam applicator.
after plastX. obviously it removed some of the yellow haze, but the headlight wasnt crystal clear.
so here it is. the leftside is plastX, you can see where the tape was, thats the remaining haze, and on the right is where i polished it.
here it is all done. this was the results of a single pass of XMT3 on orange, and a single pass of XMT1 on orange. XMT1 is just a finer polish, that takes longer to break down, and results in essentially being able to remove more haze before it breaks down, however it has less cut then XMT3 which is why i started with a heavier cut, and worked my way down.
side by side.
the car itself recieved a single pass of meguiars 83 cleaner polish (which has a similar cut to XMT3) and was sealed with megs 21 synthetic sealant. the whole polishing process took about 6-7 hours.
PlastX as an over the counter product is good, but there are alternatives that yield much better results. Wetsanding is the best option to fix headlights. wetsanding removes the pitting scratches, which is something that the polishes i used and plastx cannot do.
if you are to wetsand your headlights, this is the process i would use.
2 passes 1000 grit (depending on how bad your headlights are with pitting and scratches. if your not comfortable using 1000 then dont)
if they arent terrible, start with 2000 grit sandpaper then work your way to 2500. after that youll need something of a similar cut to the XMT3 that i used. the best way to do this is with a random orbital polisher. its impossible to yield these results by hand.
if machine polishing isnt your thing, and you dont want to spend that kind of money for just your headlights there really isnt anything wrong with plastX. it does what it says it does... but there are other options.
and it drastically improves the light output. before the civics lights were reflecting off of the haze. when the headlights were polished we turned them on, and the light just poured out of the lamps.
edit heres my car with the headlights freshly polished.
you can somewhat compare it to my avatar picture... if anyone wants better pictures i can take some tomorrow...
edit heres my car with the headlights freshly polished.
you can somewhat compare it to my avatar picture... if anyone wants better pictures i can take some tomorrow...
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