Hi guys!

Not a Crossfire question...my girlfriend used Nail Polish remover to spot clean a couple of touch up paint spots on her headlight and her tail light. She bought the car like that and no clue how previous owner got a couple of dots of paint on the plastic. Anyways, I know she should have rather user alcohol remover but she used Nail polish remover and the areas are super cloudy now.

How can that be reversed? Do we need to wet sand with a 1500-2000 grit maybe? Polish?
Thanks for any tips on this matter!

Nick

 

I would think wet sand and polish are your only options. Going all the way down to 400 grit, and working your way up will probably be the best solution.

 

So never did that...how does that work? Use 400 and sand then jump up to 600 and sand? What's the exact process? Thank you

 

Correct. You'll start with the 400. Make sure to keep your paper wet, and keep rinsing it to get plastic out of the grit. Cannot have too much water! It will make them look horrible, and you will question everything. Keep sanding until all of the yellow tinge comes out of the white plastic slurry that is being made. The yellow is what you are trying to remove. You just about cannot possibly sand through the lens, so get it all out. Also, hit around the edges and corners of the lens, as the yellow there "shines through" the lens, and makes it look yellow, even when the surface you are looking at is clear. Then step to 800. Camp out on that for a while. Then 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, then 3000 (even 4000, if you have it). At this point, it should start looking like a lamp again. Polish with the plastic lens polish. It should take a solid hour to do each lamp, to put it in perspective.

Also, remove the rubber gasket from around the lens. Makes cleanup and the job itself easier. It probably needs a bath, too. One last thing. Keep the rubber caps on the backside on while doing this, if possible. It will prevent the wet slurry from entering and making a new mess of the insides.

 

I think the nail polish will have eaten deeper into the plastic deeper than the yellow layer. Nail polish contains acetone and it’s favourite diet is Poly Carbonate.

 

Thanks for all the tips..she basically spot cleaned...she didn't rub it all over the headlight just on a quarter sized spot so therefore that quarter sized area is a bit cloudy now. I guess before we purchase new headlights, the fine grit sandpaper is worth a shot. Maybe it didn't get too deep into the plastic after all.

 

Acetone really burrows into the plastic, it literally liquefies the plastic and rapidly solidifies as the acetone evaporates. You may be well advised to leave it as is.

 

~ One thing to keep in mind if you happen to use a buffing wheel to polish the lense after cleaning the haze off. is to NOT stay in one place too long as the heat will cloud the INSIDE of the plastic lense where you cannot get to. Remember to wax the lense when you are done.
~ Messed up one lense on my '08 Dodge truck by burning the inside that way.....good luck.

 

If you're worried just have a detail shop do it for you. I only say that because you do not want to mess up these headlamps as they are very expensive to replace and hard to find.

 

They almost always have broken tabs if you do find them.