25 Year Old Multi-Stage Headlight Restoration

I've been looking forward to breathing some life back into the Fiat's faded headlights as I know what a massive difference clear cut lenses can make to an old car. So now that I had a fresh batch of nano polishing pads, a brand new bottle of single stage compound and some scuffed old abrasive discs from the body shop, there was no reason to hold off with the restoration for any longer. So while these 25 year old limited edition lenses weren't the worst I've ever seen were still looking sorry enough for themselves to warrant removing, sanding back, polishing up and protecting as nothing screams uncured for like cataract ridden plastic peepers. And while I've gotten to grips with a fair few dedicated headlight restoration kits over the years, decided to go without here as there's no magic restorative ingredient that only they contain so stick around to see how my somewhat random assortment of purchased complimentary and hand me down bits fared here. Now although these particular clamshell encompassed headlights could have realistically been dealt with on the car, thought I'd remove them here as doing so would allow me to properly clean and rejuvenate the manky rubber seals sandwiched between them and the bonnet. As well as freely polish the surrounding paintwork as while a full exterior machine isn't on the cards just yet, didn't like the idea of freshly restored headlights being subsequently encircled in swirls. And while I was at it, thought I'd go the whole hog and pull the mini front clusters to see if I could knock back the layer of road rash they were peppered with. As well as each of the 4 circular rear lenses for a standalone spot polish as despite being such a focal feature didn't look like they'd ever been treated to anything other than a quick wash. So with plenty of transparent plastic to be getting to grips with and the car essentially out of service without it, went ahead and got stuck straight into the freshly detached headlights with a fairly aggressive 500 grit foam backed hand sand and while this did serve to quickly flap the plastic back, unfortunately wasn't up to cutting through what remained of the stale but extremely hard lacquer so had to reluctantly drop down to a rough 400 grit pad for that which from a follow up finishing perspective wasn't ideal but did with a fair bit of targeted back and forth thankfully abrade away what I reckoned was non factory applied 2k lacquer. I then followed that up with the 500 stage I'd initially started with mostly off camera as there's no point showing you the same thing twice before moving on to a slightly finer but still fairly coarse 800 pad to hopefully work out the heavier sanding marks from the soft unforgiving plastic, spending a bit more time than I had earlier to try and achieve that and I decided to keep things dry for the heavier stages here as it's less messy but more importantly makes the controlled scratches you're inflicting a bit easier to see which a wet surface can mask and therefore give you a false sense of security. But if you prefer to prevent your abrasives from potentially becoming clogged with old lacquer and plastic as can happen when working dry then feel free to wet sand your lenses from the get go instead. When it came to the finer 1000 grit plus stages I did spritz the lenses over with a detail spray and swish those pads and bits of paper out in a bucket of fresh water. As you're looking to progressively smooth and refine the finish after the heavier oxidation removal and working wet just makes things a bit less impactful which at this point is ultimately what you want and whilst some may advise working in alternate directions in an attempt to more easily keep track of where you are sanding mark elimination wise which I do understand, in my experience when working by hand you're almost always going to be left with at least a few stray sanding marks at the end of the process no matter how attentive you think you've been and I just prefer mine to run in one direction rather than all over the place but go ahead and switch it up in between sanding stages if that makes more sense to you. I've finished up the sanding for the first lens with a thorough 1500 and 2000 grit going over again spending a little longer on each stage than the one that went before to help ensure that the previous abrasions were adequately finished down and while it can feel quite monotonous it's here that you should begin to see and feel the fruits of your labour as the plastic progressively becomes smoother and more refined so it's important to stick with it until the lens turns translucent which generally signifies that you can down paper and pad abrasives and move on to liquid ones in the form of compounds and or polishes to restore the optical clarity you've been after from the start. While a cordless drill is often the machine of choice for the DIY headlight restorer, a dedicated micro polisher can be a handy and arguably safer alternative and although I suspected I'd probably need to utilise either a microfibre or wool pad to effectively cut through the sanding marks, I thought it was worth at least giving a less aggressive foam pad a go first as sometimes you get lucky and while it did restore plenty of clarity unsurprisingly it wasn't up to eliminating the sanding marks to a satisfactory standard so up the ante with a microfibre pad which had been primed in complimentary fashion with some of Turtle Wax's relatively new Pure Compound product as I've never really felt the need for standalone plastic polishes and although after a bit of work this combo did serve to leave the lenses as sanding mark free as you could realistically hope for, would still need following up with a lighter dual action polish to take care of any rotary inflicted ticks and trails that might not be visible here but certainly would be in the direct sun or under the projected illumination of a headlight bulb. So because polishing headlights up like this can be a bit awkward, depending on the design of yours it might be better to do them on the car which will give you a bit more purchase and stability but I personally favoured being out of the elements for a change and not making a mess of the surrounding panels here so I cracked on under cover ensuring the finish of the now transparent plastic was refined to the point where any lighting consistencies could only be seen when looking really hard for them as while I wasn't seeking perfection with a job like this still didn't want the old headlight to look half done so I spent some time in dual action spot mode before thoroughly buffing off any single stage compound residue so I could move on to applying an appropriate protectant. Now while you can re-lacquer plastic headlights for a more permanent finish, if you're the type that likes to keep on top of things cleaning and protection wise then you can just use the same products you do on your paintwork so for this first freshly restored headlight I applied some long lasting fluoropolymer based fuso coat which should keep the sun's harmful rays at bay for up to 12 months giving it a good few minutes to bond with the polycarbonate lens before buffing it back to a slick shine with a fresh microfibre towel as you don't want to be re-inflicting swirls and scratches with a contaminated one at this point but if you prefer a set and forget type solution then you can either rattle can things over with clear or have a body shop bake some lacquer onto them for you and while this 25 year old headlight wasn't 100% crystal clear at this point as it'd need opening up and internally wiping down for that still looked considerably better than the untouched one so aside from being finished up with a ceramic coating instead just to provide a bit of protective variety set about that one in pretty much the same way to hopefully bring about a similar result so with the headlights thoroughly seen too I turn my attention to the loose rear lenses which unlike old headlights you don't generally sand back as they don't tend to oxidize to the same extent plus often have little raised markings that will get in the way so after carefully securing their brittle plastic housing in the vice treated them to a thorough mini machine polish first in rotary fashion to quickly cut through any scratches and surface cloudiness of which there was a bit then in a dual action manner again to refine the finish to the point it was free from mini buffer trails which I don't think would have been possible to properly do with them still fit into the car before buffing off the almost non-existent pure product residue so I could then go on to lock in that freshly rejuvenated finish with what remained of the auto bright light ceramic coating as using a wax or anything paste based can lead to an unsightly build-up of white residue around the raised bits mentioned earlier so would always advise going with a liquid base protectant for rear lights instead although I had aimed to give the front clusters of sand back and subsequent polish the reason they were stone chipped rather than faded was because they were in fact glass so after fairly quickly realizing that and knowing that glass polishing is a different beast altogether just went ahead and treated them to a quick once over in the vice with the paintwork polished to at least ensure they were clean and bright before vacuuming up any dead bug debris from the inside of the lens which was quite accessible once the fog light assembly was out the way giving it a thorough wipe out with a glass cleaner prime towel as well which was both satisfying and frustrating though and I couldn't realistically do the same for the other sealed units but every little helps and I have been using the front spots at night to make up for the lack of light from the dipped beam projectors so may now see a few percents worth at least of improved visibility so with all the detached bits sufficiently seen to it was time to selectively enhance the parts of the car that housed them starting with the headlight cutouts in the bonnet which after being wiped down with a detail spray to remove a light layer of pollen infused dust that had settled while the car had been sat idle were treated to an encircling rotary and dual action spot polish to make sure that the freshly restored headlights would be surrounded by at least a couple of inches worth of fairly defect-free paintwork and while the entire car is desperate for a proper polish I'm not yet sure what to do with it and where at the very least I'd like to hang on until I can pick up a new 24 volt cordless flex machine to use but for now a small swirl free halo or two would have to suffice. While that was it for the black paintwork I did also treat the limited edition titanium grey recessed rear light cups to a quick dual action jobby as while they really need rubbing back and repainting won't be getting sprayed anytime soon so thought the least I could do was brighten them up to the point where they weren't massively let down the overall look of the soon to be housed freshly polished and protected lenses or although I didn't apply any dedicated protectant here as I wanted to commit to getting things back into place while it was still fairly bright would just make sure that the spritzed over with something suitable next time the car's treated to a routine maintenance wash. It was then time to refit the freshly restored polished and vacuumed out lenses partly to see how they'd look on the car but more importantly so I could get back to using it as while a motor like this would likely represent a second or even third project car for most other esteemed automotive youtubers it's my daily driver and so can't really afford to have it sitting in a state of disassembly for more than a few days but thankfully aside from a bit of light jiggery pokery to ensure the old units were sitting as flush as they possibly could be the headlights and front clusters weren't too much of a faff to put back and while I did have to contort my lanky six foot frame to get the rear lamps positioned and secured it's always good to know that you can fit a body in the boot should the need arise then following a final detail spray spritz and gentle buff back to ensure everything was smear and fingerprint free for the after shots as I'd ran out of nitrile gloves for this one called it a polished plazzie day or two so I'd say overall I was relatively happy with how the headlights turned out being a quarter of a century old I had prepared myself for the worst and although they weren't perfect we're still a damn sight better than before and provided they keep them topped up with some form of uv inhibiting protect it should stay that way if and when the rest of the car is restored to show quality standard then I might consider giving them a second more uniform sand back with an appropriate machine but for now as a means to quickly lift the overall look of the exterior did that in their hand sanded form just fine it would have been nice to have finished up with a full led bulb upgrade but couldn't really justify the hundreds of squids that had inevitably costing back and forth purchases to get it done right but hopefully the restoration alone will help to up the standard incandescent output considerably plus it was another thing I could now tick off the long list of cosmetic improvements but do stay tuned for more as there's plenty that still needs doing with the car elsewhere