Wet Sanding Headlights - Mercedes Sprinter

[Wingz123]

You can separate them I believe by putting in the microwave to heat the seal up so they separate but that does seem like a lot of effort....

[Frogchod]

I just done the lights on my van on Sunday.  I was a bit nervous about attacking soft plastic with sand paper.  

They turned out ok

I used a kit from ebay, think it was 5.99, it contained a rotary mop with velcro to hold the various grades of paper, polishing compound etc. Also a final sealing polish

which I guess is to protect from uv.    I'll have to wait and see if that works.

[Wingz123]

2 hours ago, Frogchod said:

I just done the lights on my van on Sunday.  I was a bit nervous about attacking soft plastic with sand paper.  

They turned out ok

I used a kit from ebay, think it was 5.99, it contained a rotary mop with velcro to hold the various grades of paper, polishing compound etc. Also a final sealing polish

which I guess is to protect from uv.    I'll have to wait and see if that works.

Got any pictures?

[Snipes]

4 hours ago, Wingz123 said:

You can separate them I believe by putting in the microwave to heat the seal up so they separate but that does seem like a lot of effort....

I think you mean the oven. I wouldn't go puttying something with metal parts in the microwave. 

I've done it will some old Manta headlights. Only needs a few minutes.  

[Wingz123]

27 minutes ago, Snipes said:

I think you mean the oven. I wouldn't go puttying something with metal parts in the microwave. 

I've done it will some old Manta headlights. Only needs a few minutes.  

Yes Correct my Error!

[Frogchod]

22 hours ago, Wingz123 said:

Got any pictures?

Kit contained two of everything, except the mop. I done both lights and there's enough left to do it again if needed.

No before pic of lights, they were heavily yellowed.

I can see in the dark now

[DoctorRetro]

I can't find the attachment for my drill to put the sanding head on it, so I did mine by hand, with just G3 compound, no sanding. 

[jonny69]

I do mine a couple of times a year. I went the whole hog the first time, but now just give them a hand polish with G3 followed by some wax. I might try those 3M wipes because, as mentioned, it’s the missing UV coating that makes them fog up again quickly. 

[Wingz123]

So, with the weather suitably dry and sunny today, I parked the truck infront of the house and myself infront of the truck with a bucket of water and the old 1500 and 2000 wet and dry paper.....

After taping her up with the blue tape, I just took my time as I did the Audi back when I did that last. Now, these headlights were pretty much past it and had been bad ever since I bought the truck. It was one of those jobs I had been putting off for ages.....

Anyway, they are better but will never be IMMACULATE because the light inside overtime has also discoloued and dulled the chrome surround and the plastic casing on the inside....

Despite this the light output bizarrely was still pretty good despite how bad a state they were so hopefully should be exceptionally good now!!

Now for a few pictures....not sure if the pictures do it justice....thoughts??

Before..

taped up....

And passenger side...done!!

halfway through....

and all finished.....

[Talbot]

From way back at the beginning of this thread:

On 9/25/2019 at 6:19 PM, Wingz123 said:

Essentially I would go until no white residue was any longer produced when rubbing the light.

Hopefully you didn't do this, as the white residue is the plastic you're sanding away.  If you keep going until there's no white residue, that will mean there's no headlamp left!

 

I had a stab at a set of W210 headlamps a while back, but I think I didn't use the right finishing compound.  All I had available was T-cut, and that didn't really "cut" it (pun fully intended).  I've never really polished a car before, so don't have anything else.  Still, the T-cut managed to get me an MOT pass, so I didn't fret too much. 

[stuboy]

gave my headlights a quick decloud with this stuff from the polish dude who resides in the next unit at work

[Wingz123]

3 hours ago, Talbot said:

If you keep going until there's no white residue, that will mean there's no headlamp left!

 

Absolutely aware of this so the plan is to do once and keep on top of, I machine polished a 3m cutting compound after the sanding then applied 2x coats of Collinite 476 wax left to dwell for some time then rubbed off.

I used t-cut would you believe back on the Audi with my machine polisher and admittedly it did a fairly decent job! 

Like i say, there was only so far I could improve it because of the inside of the lense and the reflective chromey bit now full due to age and sindging from the heat output of the bulbs themselves......

Many had said they were too far gone but I think I've made some sort of improvement.....you can see the bulbs through the lenses now whereas before you couldn't see anything!