How to Fix Foggy Headlights: 3 Different Methods: Honda Civic

so you might be wondering why I'm here, why any of these cars would need headlight restoration. Fair question, it's not like that, but most of these owners work in Manhattan and take the train from the suburbs to the city and need a train car or what. I call a knocker to park on the door bumper. The Mecca of New York, also known as the train parking lot, these cars remain warming in the sun all day and it is common to find them with discolored or cloudy

headlights

in this episode that we are going to. to guide you through the steps of how to fix those

foggy

glasses coming today at drive clean this is the collector car garage where some of the world's coolest cars hibernate during the winter months here in the northeast opened in 2005 It's four stories, 75,000 square feet of heated and air-conditioned space that can hold more than 320 cars and countless motorcycles and is located in Bedford Hills, New York, before we dispel any myths about how to permanently restore clarity to these lenses.

I want to talk to you a little. A little about why

headlights

turn fog or yellow in the first place, believe it or not, there was a time when headlights were only made of glass, but those days are long gone as plastics and advanced technology, a material known as polycarbonate plastic, was used as a replacement for glass. because it's lighter, cheaper to make, and resists breakage from road debris as you drive down the street, but of course there's a downside: polycarbonate is a porous material, think about that if you have a light bulb shining from the inside and UV rays shining in from outside.

Outside inside clearly the plastic takes a beating on both sides it is understandable that the manufacturer's UV coating deteriorates quickly to help demonstrate this. I asked Tommy, our videographer, to set up a camera with the same exposure and shutter speed before and after the repair to see. how much light the camera sensor captures to simplify this somewhat confusing topic. I have divided the most common remedies into three

different

categories, home remedies, DIY and lastly professional, today I am going to separate the light with tape into three

different

sections and show you. How each of these works, some are good, some last a little longer, but today we will find out which one will work for your car.

The most common home remedy is somewhat effective, but it is a very short-term solution. lacks clarity. I'm sure you guessed it. I'm talking about toothpaste as it contains microabrasives that are used to clean or polish your teeth while brushing, but the downside is that it is not enough nor is it the right type of abrasive for heavily oxidized plastics. Another popular home remedy is insect repellent with DEET. This has an immediate but superficial effect because the lens appears instantly restored, but the cloudiness will return in a few days. Insect repellents with DEET will melt or corrode plastic, leaving it sticky or tacky to the touch.

It is not a healthy or long-term solution. The second category is what I call DIY. These are kits typically found at auto parts stores that contain foam and wool pads with drilling accessories. This is a very effective and popular correction method because it is neither pneumatic nor electrical. Polishers are needed, just your standard household electric drill with the wool pad attached to your drill and compound to your pad and start polishing the lens in overlapping motions with a constant downward pressure and speed. The last step is with a foam pad and polish that removes the fine scratches installed by the wool, then add your protection and your lenses will be in much better condition.

The third category is for professionals and serious DIY bugs who are willing to spend a few extra minutes using sandpaper before any compounding or polishing. Point out that many people tap and say this is too advanced for Sunday morning cleaning, but I assure you it can be easily fixed with a little patience even in the most novice of hands because the perfectionist technique is a little more complex. . To divide it into three subsections around the sandpaper grit for medium heavy oxidation and light for heavy oxidation, it is best to again use 320 to 800 grit. You will need to adjust it based on the damage to your particular lens.

This heavy cutting process is done dry. or without a supplemental wetting agent it can also be done by hand or with a machine you are going to go in these directions you are going to go east west this west I am going to put a little pressure what you are going to notice well Right off the bat, it is as if you were wet sanding a vehicle and some dust would come off. In this case, this powder is burned off with a UV coating which we'll talk about again towards the end because we're getting there. There is a lot of coating that has dried out and become brittle and is clearly not offering any protection because it is turning yellow, so I think we have done enough.

I'm going to clean up, wait a minute there's my 800. Put that on the side, put this on and let's do a quick clean just to make sure there's no big contaminants that we just cut out. I'm going to stay there for the next small bit of sanding for step two, we're going to move on to subsection 2 for a medium cut from 1000 to 1500 grit, in this case I'll use 1000 grit for my next cut with very little supplemental wetting agent , like water, in a process called wet sanding. Step 2 is the most important step among the three because it will dictate the level.

For clarity with your final product, your goal here is to remove the scratches and dullness you installed in step one. However, there are two tricks to help you tackle this crucial step. The first is to use front to back movements instead of side to side like we did. For the first step, this allows you to trim the sanding peaks from a different angle, which concentrates all the cutting power on the high spots left in step 1. Okay, now you can see all the sand that's there, like this that I would like take this is just a mixture of water and water here in a glass cleaning bottle clean them so now it looks fresh again okay now with the light on the reason we did it is so we can see behind and We can see the March that we have made now the marks that I have made and that I can see are those that go from north to south, that is what my eyes show me at this moment.

I don't really see, except for one or two marks here, anything going east. -west and that's the goal so if I see things going from east to west that means I would have to go back and go north to south to take them out so this is a great way to double check so yeah . I see scratches from north to south so in the next phase of sanding we will go from east to west again and sand them and it should be perfect once you are satisfied that the 800 grit peaks are level with the mil grit ones. lighthouse again in preparation for step three our last step with sandpaper or subsection three is with 2500 to 3000 grit wet sanding once again for this we will use horizontal strokes because step two was vertical for further sanding Maximum refinement this technique is called crosshatch pattern that professionals find very effective on this 3000, we will remove the 1500 and leave it almost perfect and definitely ready for compounding and then polishing.

This step is usually the quickest of the three and when you're done, clean the headlight one more time. Because working clean is vital in clear plastic as the leftover scratches have nowhere to hide, at the end of this step you will start to see a slight clarity, so the next step is to blend and for this I am using the 15 rupees here, this it's the LH 75 and it's an amazing three inch orbital machine, it has a great reach and for this I'm using the McGuire microfiber cutting pad and I use about 105 with that, like any microfiber cutting pad for the make up phase that you have to extend.

On your compound for step four, I use a leveling compound and a three-inch pneumatic buffer, but a power drill or electric buffer also works great along with a microfiber cut or wool pad, all right after the compounding step. compound, just as you did with sanding. you want to remove, you want to try to clean it as much as possible, so use a little bit of water and remove it now, it looks pretty good for the last step, you want to polish it and this will give you the last. a little clarity before you put the protection on, in this case I'm just using a foam finishing pad, whatever works for you, it's perfect, come back, you're going to put some polish on there, spread it well and don't even sling take that and now we're going to go back in just like you did with the compound and now you're going to polish it all right after polishing, do the same thing, you're going to remove it, but this time you're going to clean it with isopropanol, a few drops there to ensure that there are no traces of compound, no traces of enamel, don't say anything, this will be perfectly clean because remember it looks spectacular, but it won't last because you removed the UV Coating that originally came with this car manufactured by the manufacturer.

The last step is to protect the new porous, uncoated polycarbonate plastic, otherwise the lens will start to fade within months, maybe even weeks. For this, you can use a strong headlight-specific coating spray sealant. -about a clear coat or new spray on lens protector available on the market today, but the key is that they all need to have a UV protectant built into the formula to be effective, whichever you choose, be sure to read the instructions for specific application

methods

and be sure to The lens is cleaned with alcohol for better adhesion. This looks fantastic. It is now clean and protected.

I'm going to ask Tommy to put the camera back. Shoot the light and see if it looks better, as you can see. There are a multitude of ways to clean and restore your headlights, some quick and easy but may not last as long, while others require a few more steps but restore clarity, increase night vision and extend the life of your headlights. . Choose the method that works best for you and the particular condition of your headlight for more information and instructional videos like this here visit mo NYC comm as always thanks for looking and see you soon the downside is that it is not the right type of abrasive for help clean I hope you have it in the movie, it's very funny, yes, always.