First Headlight restoration

J

JSFM35X

Active member
I have a friend whose wife drives an older model BMW. He was telling me how expensive it was to purchase headlight assemblies.

He told me he purchased an "as seen on TV" kit that did not work at all.

I told him that I would be happy to take a look and try to polish them up, but that I have never done it before. I figured, that they could not get much worse.


My process was to use a Flex DA with an Orange Poorboys cutting pad and M105. This removed a lot of the heavy Oxidation. It took about 6 reloads of the pad with M105 to get the real cloudiness to be removed. I then used my PC with a 3" Orange pad to get into the tighter areas that I missed in the scalloped areas along the bottom. I cleaned the pads and switched to M205 and the orange pad. This cleared things up a little but not too much more. I switched to a Green Uber polishing pad and 205 and if it made a difference it was slight. Lastly I wiped the light down with a 10% IPA solution and applied Cquartz to the lenses with a makeup pad. Let it flash and wiped with a MF towel. Two coats applied.



Before:






After:








I was happy with the transformation. Total time from taping off the lights, to polishing and applying Cquartz was just under 1 hour.

It was easier than correcting paint.
 
That came out great! Sometimes that line at the edge of the old coating is more stubborn and you have to sand the rest of the coating off, but it's always great when you don't.

PS Wonder how long that CQuartz is going to hold up? OC 2.0 lasted less than a year on headlights/license plate lenses, I'm having better luck so far with Opti-Lens.
 
I did have sand paper with me (soaked the night before) because the picture he sent were do bad, but I have never used it before so I wanted to avoid it, even if it meant a little more polishing. Once I saw the M105 Breaking through I knew it was not going to require sanding.

I had some Cquarts I opened a few days prior and wanted to use it up before it went bad. I will let you know the life span and will update after the winter.

He is a friend of mine so obviously there was not charge for time or labor and I had all the materials. I always enjoy trying something new, and I also got to help out a friend so all was good.

I was home Saturday AM before I was even missed :)


Setec Astronomy said:
That came out great! Sometimes that line at the edge of the old coating is more stubborn and you have to sand the rest of the coating off, but it's always great when you don't.

PS Wonder how long that CQuartz is going to hold up? OC 2.0 lasted less than a year on headlights/license plate lenses, I'm having better luck so far with Opti-Lens.
Click to expand...
 
Really nice results! Thanks for sharing :)

Setec Astronomy said:
PS Wonder how long that CQuartz is going to hold up? OC 2.0 lasted less than a year on headlights/license plate lenses, I'm having better luck so far with Opti-Lens.
Click to expand...

Interesting - I corrected my own headlights a few months back and used OC 2.0 - so far so good.

JSFM35X said:
He is a friend of mine so obviously there was not charge for time or labor and I had all the materials. I always enjoy trying something new, and I also got to help out a friend so all was good.
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Awesome attitude. I couldn't agree more when it comes to helping out family/ close friends. :)
 
JSFM35X -

Wow - beautiful work !
Very nicely done !
Thank goodness Hella makes really great quality plastic lenses for these dang Bimmers !
Done lots of these, and they always come back to life - just have to be patient with them and not heat them up too much with the Rotary Power.. :)

Thanks for doing this so well and most importantly - helping out a friend !!
Great Karma is or has already come your way !
Dan F
 
Thanks Dan.

I will take all the good Karma I can get. I used a flex DA. I am not skilled with a rotary at all.

I was patient and they came around. I was happy with the results. I found it easier that taking swirls out of a dark car.

You can never go wrong helping out a friend.

Stokdgs said:
JSFM35X -

Wow - beautiful work !
Very nicely done !
Thank goodness Hella makes really great quality plastic lenses for these dang Bimmers !
Done lots of these, and they always come back to life - just have to be patient with them and not heat them up too much with the Rotary Power.. :)

Thanks for doing this so well and most importantly - helping out a friend !!
Great Karma is or has already come your way !
Dan F
Click to expand...
 
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