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

so you might be asking yourself why am I here why would any of these cars need headlight restoration fair question they don't 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 beater to park in the door ding bumper scuff Mecca of New York also known as a train parking lot these cars sit baking in the Sun all day and it's common to find them with faded or hazy headlights on this episode we're going to walk you through the steps of how you can repair those foggy lenses all coming up today on drive clean this is collector's car garage where some of the most amazing cars in the world hibernate for the winter months here in the Northeast it opened in 2005 it's four floors 75,000 square feet of heated in air conditioned space that can hold over 320 cars and countless motorcycles and it's located in Bedford Hills New York before we dispel any myths on how to permanently restore clarity in these lenses I want to talk to you a little bit about why headlights fade 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 technology advanced material known as polycarbonate plastic was used as a replacement to glass because it's lighter cheaper to manufacture and resists breaking from road debris as you're driving down the street but of course there's a catch polycarbonate is a porous material think about it if you have a light bulb shining from the inside and UV rays shining from the outside in clearly the plastic takes a beating on both sides it's understandable that the manufacturers UV coating deteriorates quickly to help demonstrate this I've asked Tommy our cameraman to set up a camera with the same exposure same shutter speed before and after the repair to see how much light is captured by the camera sensor to simplify this somewhat confusing topic I've split the most common remedies into three distinct categories home remedies DIY and lastly professional today I'm going to tape off the light into three distinct sections and show you how each one of these works some are good some lasts a little bit longer but today we're going to find out which one is going to work for your car the most common home remedy is somewhat effective but it's a very short-term fix that lacks clarity I'm sure you guys guessed it I'm talking about toothpaste as it contains micro abrasives used to clean or polish your teeth while brushing but the downside is it's not enough nor is it the proper kind of abrasive for heavily oxidized plastics the other popular home remedy is bug repellent with DEET this has an immediate but superficial effect because the lens looks instantly restored but the haziness will return in a few days bug sprays with DEET will melt or corrode the plastic leaving it sticky or tacky to the touch this is not a healthy or a long-term solution the second category is what I call DIY these are kits typically found at your parts store that contain foam and wool pads with drill attachments this is a very effective and popular correction method because no pneumatic or electric polishers are needed just your standard household power drill with the wool pad attached to your drill ad compound to your pad and begin to buff the lens in overlapping motions with a consistent downward pressure and speed the last step is with a foam pad and polish which will remove the fine scratches installed by the wool then add your protection and your lenses are in much better shape the third category is for professionals and the serious DIY errs who are willing to spend the few extra minutes using sandpaper prior to any compounds or polishes at this point many people tap out and say this is too advanced for the Sunday morning cleaning but I assure you it can be easily fixed with a bit of patience even in the most novice of hands because the perfectionist technique is a bit more complex I'm going to break it down into three sub sections around sandpaper grit for heavy medium and light oxidation for heavy oxidation it is best to use 320 to 800 grit again you will need to adjust according to the damage of your particular lens this heavy cut process is done dry or without a supplemental wetting agent it could also be done by hand or machine you're going to go in this directions you're going to go east west east west I'm going to put some pressure what you're going to notice right off the bat it's just like if you are wet sanding a vehicle you're going to have some dust that comes off in this case this dust is burnt up UV coating which we'll talk about again towards the end because we are pulling off so much coating that's been dried and brittle and it's clearly not offering any protection because it's yellowing all right so I think we've done just about enough I'm taking off we're going to clean that a minute there's my 800 put that to the side put this down let a quick clean just to make sure there's no large contaminants that we just cut off I'm going to stay there for the next next little sanding part for step two we're moving into subsection 2 for a medium cut of 1000 to 1500 grit in this case I'll be using 1,000 grit for my next cut with a very little supplemental wetting agent such as water in a process called damp sanding step 2 is the most important step among the three because it will dictate the level of clarity with your final product your goal here is to remove the scratches and haze 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 motions instead of side to side as we did for the first step this allows you to shave down the sanding Peaks from a different angle which focuses all the cutting power on the high points left behind in step 1 okay so now you can see all the grit that's in there so then I'd like to take this is just a you know water water mixture here in a glass cleaning bottle clean those out so now it looks fresh again okay now with the light on the reason why we've done that is we can see behind and we can see the March that we've made now the marks that I've made that I can see are the ones going north-south that's what my eyes are showing me right now I don't really see except for one or two marks here anything going east-west and that's what the goal is so if I saw things going from east to west that means I'd have to go back and go north-south to take those out so this is a great way to sort of double check yourself so yeah I see north-south scratches so on the next phase of sanding we're going to go east-west again and grind those off and it should be perfect once you're satisfied that the 800 grit Peaks are leveled by the thousand grit clean your headlight again in preparation for step three our last sandpaper step or subsection three is with 2500 to 3000 grit damp sanding once again for this we're going to use horizontal motions because step two was vertical for further sanding Peak refinement this technique is called a crosshatch pattern that professionals find very effective this 3000 we'll take off the 1500 and get you pretty close to perfect and definitely ready for compounding and then polishing typically this step is the quickest of the three and when you're done clean the headlight once again because working clean is vital on clear plastic as leftover scratches have nowhere to hide by the end of this step you will begin to see some slight clarity alright so the next step is compounding and for this I'm using the rupes 15 here this is the LH 75 and it is an incredible three-inch orbital machine it's got a huge throw and for this I'm using McGuire's microfiber cutting pad and use some 105 with that as well just like any microfiber cutting pad for the compounding phase you have to spread in your compound for step four I use a leveling compound and a three inch pneumatic polisher but a power drill or electric polisher works great too along with a microfiber cutting or a wool pad all right after the compounding step just like you did with the sanding you want to remove you want to try to clean that off as much as possible so use a little bit of water and take that off now it's looking pretty good for the last step you want to polish it out and this is going to get you any last little bit of clarity before you put your protection on in this case I'm just using a foam finishing pad whatever one works for you is perfect come back in you're going to put some polish on there spread it in just nice and even no sling take that and now we're going to go back in just like you did compounding and now you're going to polish it all right after the polish do the same thing you're going to remove it but this time you're going to clean it with isopropanol a few little drops on there so this is going to ensure that there's no leftover compound no leftover polish no saying anything this is gonna be perfectly clean cuz remember this looks spectacular but it will not last because you've removed the UV coating that originally came with this manufactured car from the manufacturer the very last step is to protect the new uncoated and porous polycarbonate plastic otherwise the lens will begin to fade in months maybe even weeks for this you can use a strong sealant headlight specific coating spray-on clear coat or a new aerosol lens protectant on the market today but the key is they all must have a UV protectant built into the formula for them to be effective whichever one you choose be sure to read the directions for specific application methods and ensure the lens is cleaned with rubbing alcohol for best adhesion this looks fantastic now this is cleaned now it's protected and I'm going to ask Tommy to put that camera back shoot the light in and see if it looks any 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 increased night vision and extend the life of the headlight altogether pick a method that works best for you and the particular condition of your headlight for more information and how-to videos like this one here visit mo NYC comm as always thanks for watching and we'll see you soon the downside is it's not the right kind of abrasive to help to clean I wish you got that on film is really funny yeah always

Channel: AMMO NYC

Views: 3,841,678

Rating: 4.8479996 out of 5

Keywords: Larry Kosilla, www.ammonyc.com, Drive Clean, AMMO Auto Care, How to detail your car, best detailing products, waxing your car, How to polish black paint, best interior detailing tricks, How to repair headlights, How to fix foggy headlights, How to remove yellow headlights, Yellow headlight repair, How to fix scratched headlight plastic, headlight restoration, honda civic, how to clean headlights, foggy headlights, how to restore headlights, faded headlights, yellow headlights

Id: uqOKmZ9mMfc

Length: 13min 22sec (802 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 17 2015