An idiot's guide to buffing headlamps & making them look new again

If your lights are not as bad you can start with 800 grit sandpaper, or in case they're worse you might need 400 grit.

BHPian AJ56 recently shared this with other enthusiasts

All lights are clear-coated from the factory, over time this breaks down and turns yellow, if you don’t wetsand properly you will see cloudy patches of the old clearcoat on the lens. Here’s the process I follow-

• Wipe down each lens with some waterless wash to remove dust.

• Clay each lens to remove bonded contaminants and mask around the edges

• Wetsand with 600 grit sanding discs attached to a short throw orbital sander.

• Step up to 1200 grit discs

• Step up to 2500 grit discs

• Heavy cut compound (Mezerna 400) with 3" coarse foam pad on a rotary polisher.

• Finish out with a soft cut pad and Menzerna 3500 polish.

• 25% IPA wipe each lens to remove polishing oils

• 2 Coats of any high quality ceramic coating (Carpro CQuartz UK 3 for eg.) applied (1.5 hrs between each coat).

• If your lights are not as bad you can start with 800 grit, or in case they're worse you might need 400 grit, rule of thumb when stepping up grit numbers is to double your current number so for eg. if you're using 1500 then the next step is 3000 grit.

Here’s what it should look like after the steps above-

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