Hi everybody, am a crossfire lover. My; husband and I had his and hers roadsters and the kids called us the 'selfish a_______'s. Need help. Just bought my beautiful yellow crossfire back after 5 years. The headlight covers are horribly fogged, etched or burned out. I had been told it was possible to buff them out but the bodyshop says no. There seem to be few left hand headlamps on ebay and more right hands. Any advice? This happened to anybody else? My former husband's look pristine. Thanks in advance and glad to be hear. This feels like a big safety issue - I have been told not to 'overrun the lights (go faster than the muted light beam - yikes).

 

Some go to Walmart and let some part time employee finish them, I would NEVER do that. If they are not careful, you will be paying a body shop to fix the damage to the surrounding paint.

Wet sanding is the best method.

I wet sand them with 600 grit paper, then with 1000 grit and then with 1500 grit if I can find it.
Cover nearby painted surfaces with duct tape, DO NOT scratch the surrounding areas. Keep the lenses wet and the paper wet (that is, use WET sandpaper, from a hardware store).
Do this until the lenses are smooth to the touch and covered with ZILLIONS of stratchs . Once you get them smooth, apply MeQuair's PLASTx with a cloth and wipe, then rub it off. Repeat the PLASTx a few more times.

Mine were pretty bad when I brought the car home. This took me 45 minutes, looks pretty good I think.
Notice the lower-left corner, that entire lens looked like that when I started. For a longer-term fix, polish the finished product.

 

thank you! your's look great! Can't figure out how to upload a pic, having computer problems. So you are not taking the headlights out to work on them? I'm assuming the damage coming from the hot bulbs would be on the inside of the plexi? Sorry if I sound a bit dense (I likely am)

 

Interior fog/condensation is another matter. Once you have a photo of them, use the photo button to put them in a post and we can go from there.
If it is exterior, it is easy to refinish them. I have no clue how any body shop would not know this and I have never heard of a bulb being hot enough to damage the lens or housing, altho I suppose it is possible.

 

 

Looks like the picture posted

 

Looks like the coating on the outside is damaged, A restoration kit should take care of that. Use masking tape around the outside of the headlight, sand and clear coat per instructions.

 

Same as what mine looked like. How could a BODY SHOP not know how to deal with this?
Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

I would not agree with this method. You should use a kit made especially for this refinishing.
The grit on ordinary sandpaper is not graded accurately enough for this job.
Wet and dry paper is more accurately graded and lasts much longer when wet.

 

thank you so Canadian Tire or Lordco or some other auto supply place for the restoration kit? Can you give me details on what kind of kit? Already made 2 calls and everybody's playing dumb. Thank you!!

 

This is what my friends husband had originally said (sounds similar to what you guys are recommending) yes I use a polishing compound called autosol. Its a aluminum polish with a fine abrasive, a foam pad on a drill or something similar. If they are really bad I wet sand them first with a 600 grit sandpaper and water, then polish" I took this to the body shop where I was having a part of the car painted and they said they didn't have the product and that the plexi was melted. Vancouver Canada is notorious for lazy people who don't seem to know much. Thanks to your posts here I think I'm going to head over to the island and see if I can get my friend's husband to have a go at it....each replacement light on ebay is almost $500 and none of them look too good
thank you much

 

I recommend the 3M Kit. I have used it on many different cars with great results. Once complete, wax them twice a year with PlastX.

 

found this on google 3M headlight restoration system look right?

 

I agree that this kit will do the job. I had something similar but mine was a cheap Chinese kit. Here is my work with my headlights:
My headlight work

The last picture in that set show before I put on the final polish. Here is a better picture. Remember I had to strip the paint off of my headlights.

 

I would get a kit with a new clear coat to protect the lens after it is cleaned.

 

Wow again thank you so much and so many success stories using the techniques The Body Shop pretended they didn't know about- yikes! Okay 3M has a couple of different products apparently and a 1-800 number so I will call them and get on this. I'm thinking one kit per Lite will work and I will have to pick up a drill somewhere. You guys rock I love that car but I want to feel super safe when I'm driving it and this will go a long way and from the sounds of things save me at least $1,000 which is huge. I'll post the finished results and thank you again have a wonderful day everybody

 

I would sand by hand and don't sand too hard. You just want to smooth the surface. Keep the surface wet while sanding. Be sure to mask off the body around the light so you don't accidently damage your paint. One kit will do both headlights.

 

One 3M kit per headlight pair.

 

I think this can be not emphasized enough. I keep a spray bottle handy to keep the headlight wet when sanding by hand. The water moves away the old particles. If you are using an orbital tool or a drill I kept a hose flowing on the headlight to keep it cool. It's very easy to overspeed to the tool and melt the plastic. The other problem with using orbital tools is sometimes the sandpaper edge will catch and scratch the lens. I would stick to hand sanding unless you have old headlights to practice on.

 

Hi Lucia,

The headlight kit will work for sure. Just make sure:

Tape off the surrounding areas of painted bodywork
you use only the sandpapers in the kit
keep the paper and headlight lens very wet as you sand
Don't push hard, just let the paper do the work

When you get to the end of the process, clean off all residue and let the lens dry. Inspect closely and look for inconsistencies in the result. If present, redo the process until satisfied.

Should you get to the end and feel the optical clarity could still be a bit better, then use some compound followed by polish for a perfect result. The compound and polish can be applied with foam hand applicators or a DA buffer.

If the kit you have includes a clear coat as the very last stage, only apply it once you are completely happy with your the results of your sanding and polishing.

Good luck!