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Headlight Makeover / Wet Sanding Job
The weather has been bad here the last couple of days. It's not raining today, but overcast and much colder so I thought I'd spend some time on my sister-in-law's Dodge Stratus (1996 I think). I've been planning on using it as a photo-op for an extreme makeover for my detailing business.
Anyway, spent about 1 1/2 hours on the headlights. I used the small drill pads, Plast-X, M85, 1000 & 1500 papers, and some leftover Gold Class Soap for soaking and spraying the paper. Here's a pic of the products:
Here's what the headlights looked like before:
A closer pic of the right side shows that it was much worse and had "cracks" all in the surface.
I began by taping off the left headlight to see what process I would use. I tried 2 passes of Plast-X on the yellow polishing pad with little change. I then tried a pass of M85 on the wool pad. In the following pic you can see that it looks pretty good, but the line of oxidation (or whatever it is) is still there.
So I proceeded to try my hand at a little wet sanding with Megs 1500 unigrit paper. I soaked the paper in water with Gold Class Soap (just b/c I had some left over and thought I'd use it up instead of my Hyper Wash), followed the techniques described in the video and MOL. By the way, this is basically the Megs process/product package available at ADS.
It took quite a bit of work, but I was happy with the results. I probably could have used 1000 grit, but didn't until I got to the right side. 1500 did very little on the right, so I went with 1000, followed by 1500.
After sanding, I did 2-3 passes with M85 on the wool pad and then followed with 2 passes with Plast-X on the polishing pad. The headlights came out nearly perfect. There were still some spots that could be better, but I was afraid to keep sanding too much. I tried to get those spots in the pics, but they were really too light for the pics even...so I guess I'm happy
.
So without further delay, feast upon these pics!! Left first, then right.
Now the right and a close-up with no more "cracks"!!
I will hopefully be getting to the paint and interior in the coming days. Man, this is fun!!
Jonathan
Anyway, spent about 1 1/2 hours on the headlights. I used the small drill pads, Plast-X, M85, 1000 & 1500 papers, and some leftover Gold Class Soap for soaking and spraying the paper. Here's a pic of the products:
Here's what the headlights looked like before:
A closer pic of the right side shows that it was much worse and had "cracks" all in the surface.
I began by taping off the left headlight to see what process I would use. I tried 2 passes of Plast-X on the yellow polishing pad with little change. I then tried a pass of M85 on the wool pad. In the following pic you can see that it looks pretty good, but the line of oxidation (or whatever it is) is still there.
So I proceeded to try my hand at a little wet sanding with Megs 1500 unigrit paper. I soaked the paper in water with Gold Class Soap (just b/c I had some left over and thought I'd use it up instead of my Hyper Wash), followed the techniques described in the video and MOL. By the way, this is basically the Megs process/product package available at ADS.
It took quite a bit of work, but I was happy with the results. I probably could have used 1000 grit, but didn't until I got to the right side. 1500 did very little on the right, so I went with 1000, followed by 1500.
After sanding, I did 2-3 passes with M85 on the wool pad and then followed with 2 passes with Plast-X on the polishing pad. The headlights came out nearly perfect. There were still some spots that could be better, but I was afraid to keep sanding too much. I tried to get those spots in the pics, but they were really too light for the pics even...so I guess I'm happy
.So without further delay, feast upon these pics!! Left first, then right.
Now the right and a close-up with no more "cracks"!!
I will hopefully be getting to the paint and interior in the coming days. Man, this is fun!!
Jonathan
They look brand new. Great writeup and pics.
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