I've been seeing this pop up ALOT lately, several people having trouble fixing their dull headlights. The reason they become dull, is because they become oxidized, often caused by sun, and other damaging sources. To clear your headlights again, you need to sand away the oxidized plastic, to the fresh, new, clean plastic. Afterwards you need to polish your headlights to remove the scuffs and dullness you've created by sanding.

First, your going to want to pick up anywhere from 1000-2000 Grit Wet Sandpaper. I've used 1000, 1500, and 2000, all with great results. Regardless of grit, be careful and dont leave scratches too deep.

Now i'll get to a step by step in a moment, you're going to want a rundown of everything you will need.

Wet sandpaper - 1000-2000 Grit Recommended.
Bucket with warm water and a little dish soap
Rag to wipe off residue to check your progress

Most important piece:
POLISH!!!

There are several polishes and kits I have tried that work great.
I recommend:

Novus Polish
System one X3 Polish (google polishandwax.com)
3M Headlight Restoration Kit (Found at AutoZone)

I'm pretty sure that's everything you will need.

Now for the process.

1. Gather all equipment needed to begin wetsanding your headlights/tailights.

2. Fill a bucket with warm water and a little dish soap for lubrication.

3. Soak your sandpaper in the warm water for 15 minutes.

4. Wet headlight before beginning, make sure the headlight is always wet or soaked.

5. Grab your sandpaper and fold it however you feel comfortable with.

6. Begin sanding your surface in ONE direction ONLY. This means either LEFT TO RIGHT or UP AND DOWN. One or the other! Don't go left and right and then decide to go up and down. Definitely do not use a swirling motion!

If the headlight is wet enough you should be seeing a yellowish liquid rolling down the headlight. This is the oxidized plastic that you are sanding off. Your going to want to keep sanding until this yellowish water turns white. This means you reached the good plastic.

Keep stopping occasionally and putting your sandpaper in the bucket of water, being sure not to clog up the sandpaper with plastic. If you'd like you can grab that rag and wipe down the headlight to see how your job is going.

Once your satisfied with the sanding process, grab your polish, or headlight kit and get ready to clean up those lenses.

1. Get your polish or kit.

This can be done in several ways:
By hand, Buffer, or Mothers Powerball on the end of a drill.

Some kits come with a drill attachment, if so, then use that!

2. Apply polish to buffer, headlight, rag, or whatever your using.

3. Work polish into headlight. The polish is NOT like wax. you cannot wipe it on and wipe it off and expect good results. Polish is all about being worked into the surface. Once it begins to harden up or you feel you've worked it in enough, buff off the polish.

Chances are you may have to do it several times before your satisfied.

That's about all I can think of, this is all I do when I polish mine.

Here's some pics of when I restored my Family's Camry.

Before:


After:


That was using System One Polish. I only did it twice, I probably shouldve done it one more time. great results none-the-less!

If your still a little weary about doing this, check out this video on youtube:
Click here

That's about it, thats all there is to it. Just get a GOOD polish, wetsand to the new platic, and use alot of elbow grease. If I missed anything, let me know!

Hopefully this will clear up some confusion

 

looks way better. nice work
i kind of enjoy doing the process. my mom has a focus and one of the headlights was replaced, so now one is perfect and one is nasty yellowish. i need to fix that!

 

Yeah I do too! I just did my tail lights on my WS6 a week ago. They look amazing now, the reflection is flawless

it's really an easy process, and it really is kinda fun

 

Actually, the focus of the wetness should be on the sandpaper, not the headlight. For best results, you want to soak the sandpaper overnight and keep the headlight wet as well while sanding, while re-dipping the sandpaper every now and then to continue the lubricity.

I don't really agree with only sanding horizontal or vertical. In fact, I do both purposefully. One pass will be in one direction and another pass in the perpendicular direction. The main thing is just not to do circular sanding motions.

Furthermore, a lot of people on here are advising to finish up with 2000. However, that might not be enough at times when you're just polishing afterward with a mild abrasive like PlastX. If you're going to use a serious polish, like more of a compounding type, then 2000 is fine. However, to those finishing up with PlastX, I would advise finishing off with 3000 grit. It will make your life a lot easier and you'll spend less time polishing.

 

9th link down in this sticky:
https://ls1tech.com/forums/appearance-detailing/443159-appearance-hall-fame-threads-check-first.html

I'm actually in the process of doing it now.

 

Thanks Arctic. Yeah I just meant have the headlight a little wet when you start sanding, and obviously soak the sandpaper for at least 15 minutes, or however long you want, but at least that as a minimum. I've heard from several places not to switch between motions, so I threw it on there just in case. I do not recall what I personally do, but I agree, I never use circular motions, and no one ever should.

Didn't know it was a sticky either, I saw like 4 threads recently asking about this so I made one just so I didn't have to answer in each thread.

 

Posted in 2004, the Novus kit is great! https://ls1tech.com/forums/appearance-detailing/157192-fixed-my-yellow-cracked-headlight-today-pics.html