The plastic lenses of my headlamps are scratched and "cloudy"

Does anyone know of any effective methods of rectifying this?
Do those buffing balls you put on the end of a drill help?

Suggestions?

Thanks

do you meen starting to go yellow?
I was searching on how to get my yellow headlights cleaner, and found on many websites that Mag wheel cleaner (and other rim cleaners) work like a charm, as well as really fine grit sand paper (the wheel cleaner actually acts like the sand paper.. atleast a few sites said this)

I havnt tried it yet but its on my todo list.

I had it saved somewhere but can't find it, believe it was Mike J that had a step by step process with different grit sandpaper.
Do a search Dan, you should be able to find it.
----I see you left London for year around sun, well done, your Talon will thank you.
Later
Steve

Dan, I used 1500 grit sandpaper and did some wet sanding! It took the yellow right off! Then used some mag when polish and they looked so good! I had people asking me how I got them like that

Thanks for the tips!

I did a search last last night and found a variety of sites offering steps on how to renew the plastic lenses. It sounds like PlastX by Maguires does a great job for this kind of thing.

My lenses aren't yellow right now, they are more cloudy and scratched with some baked on crap on them. I am hoping wet sanding and/or buffing with some compound will fix that right up.

Thanks for the advice!

She's liking it so far, but we'll see how grateful she is when the summer hits 42+c outside....
Right now it's just a lousy 16c.....

Buy new ones. Have done the buffing procedure and it does clean them up taking off a few years. You have to be careful or you can burn them with a buffer and the yellow/haze comes back fairly quickly. My new aftermarket lenses were worth the cash look better and are brighter.

What kind of aftermarket ones did you get Jerry?

The big complaint that I have heard about all the sanding and buffing processes is that the haziness returns quickly. I have a kit that is SUPPOSED to be easy to use, and SUPPOSED to last. I think it has some sort of a clear coat product that seals. The downside is that it is $49.95 plus taxes.

The lights Jerry is talking about would be the ones from X3Racing that we did the group buy on!

*Wet sand from 1000-2000 grit.
*then polish with a plactic polish paste.
*place a see trough film over the polished finish


this will make your light like new again but it wont last forever, they will quickly cloud up in the sun light.

Like Jerry said, you would be better off just buying new ones.

Are these the ones?

These were the ones:

http://www.x3racing.com/product.asp?pid=HD-KS-ME92-C

It's been pretty well established by now that aftermarket headlights do not do as good of a job as the OEM ones. This is true for 2Gs at least, not sure about the 1G ones that people got in the group buy.

I would definitely try to polish up the ones you've got before buying a new set of potentially inferior lights.

If I had more motivation I would take the lense from the new ones and put it on my original assembly but too much like work. The quality of the original reflector and housing is better but also more than twice the price. Overall a good compromise. As far as I know people arent happy with the 2g projector style lights though as Jeff mentioned.

That's good to know (about the projector style lights)

I took a long look at my headlights as they are, and have decided I'd like to stay as close to stock as possible, so I might just have to order up some replacement OEM's if I can't buff the imperfections out of these originals. (Plus, my wife says I am not allowed to get anything for the car that doesn't help it's performance in some tangible way, i.e: no ricey crap)

Thanks for the tips guys.

I am pretty sure TYC makes replacement headlights for a talon. I had one of mine replaced a year ago and the price was around $200 for one.
That was from a body shop, so who knows my insurance company could have been eatting the markup, but it ws better than the $800 from satan.

I sanded mine 1000 -> 1500 -> 2000 then white rubbing compound, after that I did 2 coats of wax.

Turned out really nice, It’s the same color as my clear corners. What more could you ask for?

hey i had the same problem. try using turtle wax white. you just need to scrub alot but it cleaned my right one up pretty good.

Ah screw it.

I'm just going to get the whole car repainted and buy new headlights.

Anyone have a link to those black headlights? where can i get a set

Here you can see the difference between clears and stock.
These lights were from the Ziggy group buy, fyi.

It'd be really nice to get some clear corners that match the headlights!!

I know where you could get those

hook me up, with headlights and signals

For Headlights I'd have to go back to california, and shipping would be a killer. Somebody was selling used 1gb headlights in excellent condition quite reasonable..Or else, a few guys have asked again about these....any interest in another group buy??

The clear corners I have in stock..$49.95 plus taxes

try the meguiars clear plastic polish man, for $11 it does an amazing job. just wash the headlights before you use it, and for best results use a microfiber polishing towel. I have cleaned up some pretty nasty lenses with that stuff. If they are real bad just wet sand them with a really fine grit, then apply the clear plastic polish 2-3 times. When you use it just apply it kinda like wax, let it sit for 2 mins or so and buff it out really well.

Ebay has those headlights with clear corners as a package. I don't have the link off hand however do a search, they are there. I am going to pick up a set soon enough.