The BEST Guide to Restore Headlights PERMANENTLY!

In this episode of Paint Society we're going to remove 15 years of rust in just minutes using your basic hand tools. Let's turn this on and get started as we learn tricks of the trade on how to remove all the oxidation from the

headlights

and then seal. With a clear coat of UV protection from a can, is it possible for these

headlights

to clear up before our eyes and be

restore

d to OEM quality? Let's find out right now what's going on everyone and welcome back to another episode of Paint Society, the learning channel. It doesn't stop when the video ends from the garage at home.

I always feel a special connection with my DIY guys sitting in the garage wanting some projects they can do with just basic tools. Well today we have the project for you, so Today's project is to clean these old fogged up headlights in our own home garage using a variety of basic tools that you can get online or at your local store, so Eagle Abrasives has a job package and comes in three grits and this is the k grit. Now we learned about the K grit which can do all the work that the P grit can do in half the time and I like it because it comes with its own hand pad and three grits that will work to clean your headlights nice and easy.

Before you go ahead and apply a clear coat, your next question is Brian, why can't I go ahead and polish the highlights while you can? The problem is polishing, it's not protecting, all it really does is make it look good, it's kind of like a band-aid, so what we're doing in this episode of this project is sanding off all that rust to get rid of it and then we put a clear coat on it, the same type of clear coat that comes out of a paint gun but in a can and what that will do is ensure that the lights are protected from UV rays so that they don't fade over a good period of time. time and then we have our Eastwood clear coat now.

I know you love these clear coats because they are two part, they are 2k. This is not your average spray clear coat. Well it actually has two parts where you release the catalyst into the actual spray paint and from there it's a ticking time bomb. about a day or two before it starts kicking. The nice thing about this is that it has UV resistance that you wouldn't get with a normal rattle can and we don't need an air compressor to spray it, so next I want to do that. Talk about safety first before moving forward. You want to make sure you are wearing your gloves and I really mean this includes your respirator as well.

Okay, it's very important that you don't breathe in any of the harmful isocyanates found in this can. it's a 2k product so it does contain those isocyanates and they are very, very harmful, when inhaled, so make sure you take care of yourself and wear a paint suit as well, so we have a There are a variety of cleaners here and we'll talk about How are we going to use them now? You don't need all three, but I like to use a degreaser to start the job just to make sure all contaminants are removed. it doesn't clog my sandpaper, so in between sanding we can use a little bit of glass cleaner, this will help remove all that content, all those contaminants from the surface so that in the end you have a nice clean job and to remove them, we I'm going to use a microfiber towel guys, you know I like microfiber because it doesn't soak through and it removes contaminants much better and last but not least, now we have our tape, you don't need both sizes, but you do.

It's going to help you, we have three quarters and inches and a half. If you're going to get one, I suggest three quarters because it's easier to get between the headlight and the panel. Okay, now I have this on tape. It just makes things a lot easier but you don't need it but if you're a painter you know how good these units are and last but not least we have the plastic to cover the car. Now you can just go to Walmart or home. Deposit and just get the tarp plastic package that will work fine, but if you plan on painting in your garage or painting in general, this automotive plastic actually has a treated side, you can see it says paint this side or this side. side up, that means on this side the plastic is treated to hold the overspray so the overspray will stick properly instead of flaking off if you have time between jobs so that's a good tip , I know that is a big question among many My viewers, so let's go ahead and start with the car, so let's go ahead and talk first about the reason why it is rusting and what we can expect as a result of cleaning them now if we take a look look at the lighthouse right here.

You can see that the transparent layer of factory UV protection is very thin and does not last long and has been peeling and peeling. It is very important that we remove all the UV protection that the factory gave us and remove it. to bare plastic and to do that we really need to hit it hard now if you take a look at this area we can see minor cracks now some of these cracks will not go away they are inside the plastic but it will look much better now the first thing we need to do is tape it down once more.

What I like about the tape is that it sticks to the car. Now I'm going to go with my inch and a half just to make sure that I don't go ahead and sand the bumper now we're not going to remove the headlights because we want to make the job as easy as possible sometimes we find it difficult to learn how to remove a bumper we don't want to break anything and if we have If there's a decent enough space around here, then running some tape through it won't be a problem. Now we're going to go ahead and use our super clean foaming degreaser and this will help remove contaminants so our sandpaper doesn't get clogged.

I'm going to let it sit for a few moments so just for a few moments you can see all that yellow coming out. The lighthouse already looks ten times better. Do I need to continue with this project? Yes, of course, because I need to do I'm sure I have a clear coat and I've completely removed all the oxidation, so let's go ahead and move on so we have our kit here now, let's talk about where we start. Now there are a total of four sheets, these cut in half, we split them in half. we can stick them directly on our hand pad now this is k-600 this is equivalent to p320 i told you guys how important the first step is we need to remove all this oxidation because the top grains are just refining it, they won't remove it.

This scratch needs to be refined in the next steps, that way the clear can fall into smaller scratches and not thicker ones. That way it's nice and clear, so it doesn't require much more than a little work and you'll be able to see it. our yellow is fading right now don't be afraid it's going to get worse it's going to look a lot worse before it looks better now in between coats to see what's going on we're going to use a little bit of that spray glass cleaner now we can see here's a line of the old uv that is still there, the whole top has lost it, but we need to make sure that this line is removed, so to remove this line, this whole area here still has the uv protection because the top of the headlight it's where the sun really focuses and breaks it down, if we don't remove all this clear coat in this area, you're going to see this line when you go to spray it, so you need to take your time now and you really need to remove everything you see. because it will still be there later it's almost gone you can see how it's still shiny right in this area don't stop sanding you're almost there we're going to go ahead and clean one more time and we want to make sure we're using the glass cleaner because it's less abrasive between coats okay so we remove all that factory outer coat uv uh now you might be wondering why can't I use a mac lacquer thinner or a medium liquor well what's that going to do?

Are you going to eat the plastic? We don't want to do that, take your time and two sheets of that k600 will take it off and I have to say it's already leaving it in better shape than a maximum grain. I can already see that it has a little bit of shine to it, which is a great sign that they're going to clear up really well, so once your K-600 is ready, we'll go ahead and jump to the K800. This is equivalent to a p 500 so two easy steps and we are ready to clean and this is just refining at this point, there should be no more oxidation on the headlight, if you still see some you should go ahead and clean it with the k 600 grit. no the k800, once the k800 is completely sanded, we'll go ahead and clean them up now just for reference.

I used two blades from my k 600 and one blade from my k800 mainly because the k-600 does most of the work and uh eating up all that oxidation the k-800 is just refining it now from here this one is good. I'll go ahead and remove the tape. I don't want any contaminants in front of the tape dust to reach the head as if it could go away. spray it and I'm going to go to the other side and I'm going to do it real quick so we're going to go ahead and jump back to this side now we're going to go ahead and tape down the headlight now I'm using an inch and a half because I feel like the spaces They are a little bigger and easier to use an inch and a half on this particular vehicle but remember all cars are a little different now I will put all the product links in the description so you can pick up the tape like this or the plastic or any product you see today do the job a pocket screwdriver really helps get that tape into all those cracks now that we've edged our headlights let's take out our plastic and lay it over the car check that the paint on this side is facing up from that way the spray sticks then go ahead and take the tape and overlap the plastic over the original tape you had and once it's all masked it should look like this.

Now, since the hood actually overlaps the headlight, we needed to prop it up, so in the meantime I used a stick to prop it up so it doesn't close while we spray. It may not be the prettiest tape job but it secures to make sure the plastic doesn't go anywhere go ahead and tape it down this is how we tape it to the back just take a whole plastic wrap and place a piece of tape around it so we are ready for our clear coat. Let me show you how this can works. It's not like any other spray.

Remember that it has the kylis built in, so this is the same type of paint that comes out of a spray gun. put in a spray remove the cap remove the red cap from the top cap then we are going to go ahead and attach it to the stem now you have to give it a good amount of pressure you are going to hear a pop once you hear that pop now we have broken the bladder inside from the can and now what's happening is we can release that catalyst into the rest of the clear coat by shaking it, we'll shake it for two or three minutes and it'll be fine.

Come on, okay, but before that remember that our paint suit and our respirator are very important now once again, right before we spray our clear coat, we're going to go ahead and do a final cleanup. Now I'm using a different microfiber not the same one we used at the beginning now we're ready to clean now you might be wondering why we skipped the adhesion promoter. I don't like using adhesion promoter on headlights because it really etchs into the plastic and I have used it before and it has been bad news, it will etch and almost melt the plastic and needs to be completely sanded starting with the k600 once again and We're not going to get into that we have a 800 k grit scratch.

Here and that's more than enough for our clear coat. All we'll do is wipe the surface with a tack cloth and then we'll be ready to spray. Our first layer will be very, very light. Now you will notice that it looks cloudy. Don't worry, that will clear up, it's just a feature of using a spray can, so don't go crazy, let it clear up in a few moments. We just sprayed the passenger side and in real time if we go back to our driver's side we can see that it's already starting to look very clear, let's leave it for a good five to six minutes, so it's already been five to six minutes, what is happening to that first layer now that the first layer is sticking and turning into glue? the second layer we can wet it a little more but not too much, okay, now it looks quite cloudy, let's look at the time lapse and see how it clears up so that the lighthouse, once it has cleared, has dried for two more hours and let's be ready to remove the tape.

There's no reason to remove the tape right away, we'll go ahead and do it from time to time. We have a beautiful headlight that has been

restore

d in our garage using a rattle can and now I know your next question is: can we polish it? If we need to do that, the good thing is that I left a little area here with a touch of orange peel. That way I can demonstrate the polishing process using the k 1200 grit and polish, but first let's let this dry for a good 12 hours before sanding and polishing it so we allow the headlights to dry overnightfor approximately 12 hours or more and are ready to be sanded and polished.

So do you really need to give your headlights a good sanding and polishing? Let's clarify something first. Sanding and wet sanding are the same thing. The only difference is that you would use water as a lubricant. This is a very good sandpaper so it doesn't need water, it will cut itself and I prefer dry sanding because you can see what you're doing now in the case of these headlights. They really look good, but for the video we're going to go ahead and sand a small area just to show you how you can polish your headlights in case yours comes out a little orange, so this is the K1200 now.

The K1200 is still a little aggressive. , so we won't rub it hard, we'll let the sandpaper do the work for us in this area, here we have a little bit of orange peel, which will be more obvious once we sand it, once I go over this area , I can see that the texture is a little bit orange, it's actually not that bad, what is our approach, we want to remove that orange peel, so we'll keep doing this until it is. Smooth and consistent like the rest of the headlight. Now we don't need to do this all over the headlight if we want, but just in the areas that need it we can see that the clear coat sprays on really well and is good. indication that this clear coat really builds up mills and gives you good UV resistance we're going to go ahead and wipe it off and just like that we're ready to go ahead and polish it's really that easy so I've got this two in one polex polish from eagle abrasives and the reason I like it is because it is a polishing compound that does the job of two in one bottle so when we do the work by hand we just stop, we don't have enough friction inside our hand to create that shine and bring that shine back because our hand just can't turn fast enough so when we go to polish it with the towel it will still be dull as you can see it's still dull here you'll need the extra help of a polisher which I have. a mini polisher that I love from Milwaukee and we have a medium thick polishing pad to go ahead and shine this pad with the actual motion and friction created by this polisher will create heat to get that shine back uh just a few moments later , the brightness is completely restored, so the only downside to having a beautifully restored headlight is that you can see what has been sitting in your headlights for 10 to 15 years.

In this case, we have a little spider and some other insects, but usually you can get a little bit of air from the back through one of the holes, whether it's the high beam or the low beam, and you can move it around, it will actually go somewhere else, since you don't see it, that's a little less desirable, not on the front of the lighthouse and there you have it, our project is complete now. If you're wondering how long the job took, it's about two hours. Now let's talk about how long these headlights last. If you've done the job right, they should last a lifetime.

If you haven't, if you refine them too much or don't remove enough dirt on a lower grit, it may not last as long because the paint doesn't adhere properly to the actual headlight, this coating on this headlight is a hundred times greater. better than the coating it comes with from the factory so I hope you learned something and I would love to see your projects guys if you want to support the channel and go ahead and paint the society shirt it is rumored that when you wear this shirt that has been touched by yours truly when it is full the powers translate from my hands to yours through the paint gun until then this is Brian from Paint Society reminding you not to overthink it, it's just pain, let's look at some before and later, right?