How To Restore Headlights With Ceramic Coating. Super Cheap, Super Satisfying!

what is up everybody welcome back to the channel my name is Alexson and today's episode of sorted we are going to take a little break from the mechanical repairs on the 2005 SI 55 AMG and instead we're going to move on to some cosmetics more specifically how to make a nasty-looking headlight like this one look practically brand new like this one in today's video I'm going to show you how I've restored hundreds of headlamps using a procedure I learned over a decade ago I used to perform this service as a mercedes-benz dealership technician and people would gladly pay the 250 dollars the dealership charged because factory replacement lenses are not available for most cars and entire headlamp assemblies can cost over $1,000 on higher-end vehicles it's a tried and true professional method that works very well even with extremely yellow faded or discolored lenses now I've recently stepped up my headlamp and paint restoration game by using this a ceramic coating made by a company called Avalon King this is their armor shield 9 and if you aren't too familiar with ceramic coatings you can think of this as a super tough clear layer or shield that anyone can apply on any car you can ceramic coat the paint plastic parts wheels glass and of course headlamp lenses ceramic coatings protect your car from UV damage and oxidation which is exactly why your paint and headlamp lenses look dull and faded after a while it also protects from acid rain bird crap SAP and anything else that normally ruins our cars and it adds a glossy almost wet look to your paint job now this stuff also does a hell of a job repelling things like water and dirt making it so that your car always looks great even in between car washes or if it's a daily driver and you simply just don't wash it all that often to show you it's unbelievable hydrophobic capabilities and how water just glides right off of the surface I've performed a little experiment I'll be ceramic coating all of my cars but I started with my Trans Am ws6 hood and head lamp covers I just mixed up some blue food coloring with a gallon of water and my kids just had to check this out take a look at how the colored water just cannot stick to the surface of the hood or the headlamp covers I was actually able to dry this all off with just using a little bit of air pressure which is so cool now I don't drive this car in the rain but after I coat the rest of it I'm totally going to just because I can the application is similar to wax in your car but a ton easier just like when you apply wax you want the paint to be clean so if you have heavy scratches you want a buff and polish it first but after that or if the paint is in good shape you just wipe it with rubbing alcohol and then apply the ceramic coating it's so easy just a few drops on the provided cloth an applicator pad and you just wipe it on it's self leveling and takes a few seconds to apply to each section you lightly buff it off with the supplied cloth or a microfiber and let it dry this has a 9h scratch resistant rating which is the highest rating ceramic coating can get and if you use my link and coupon code in the description box you'll receive $25 off making an entire kit that will cover a whole car or like 10,000 headlights only $45 all right guys let's get right into this and make the c55 headlamp look brand new now first things first you want to work in a clean environment so I clean the headlamp and the entire area around it with some rubbing alcohol and microfiber next up we're gonna use some normal painters tape to mask off the entire area around the headlight and now I'll be doing a three-stage wet sand in a two stage buff because these lenses are in rough shape but if yours are just slightly yellowed you can skip the wet sanding part and just buff them out and in that case you don't necessarily need to mask everything off but it's always a good idea I installed new lenses on the e55 since I had to remove the old ones to paint the inside chrome trim black so I just simply ceramic coated them without any sanding and it looks great but with everything else I like to wet send them because it takes about 10 minutes works really well and is actually a lot of fun also if your lights come out easier that's an option as well but if not it's probably best to use like an old tablecloth over the entire engine bay engine compartment be this can get a little bit messy I still have a full detail to do so I wasn't too worried after taping everything off I just used a little bit of warm water with some Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo because it really smells awesome and it offers some good lubrication and cleaning for the pad and then we're gonna start the wet sanding process as you can see here so I'm using an 800 grit sanding disc and this is a six inch disc that I have attached to an air-powered dual action sander but if you guys don't have any shop air you can buy one of these things an electric version off Amazon and it does the exact same job works really really well and also if you don't want to buy anything you can just buy the sandpaper and do this by hand it obviously just takes a little bit longer so I will wet sand these with the 800 grit for about three to five minutes stopping every 30 seconds to clean everything off and then rewetting it every time and this is what it looks like after you're done with the 800 grit stage it looks kind of cloudy but this means that you're actually getting somewhere next up we're using 1500 grit sandpaper we're gonna do the exact same thing we're gonna wet it down wet the pad down wet the headlight down wipe it down every 30 seconds or so to keep everything clean and just apply a little bit of pressure you don't need to go nuts here and make sure you cover the entire area very very well and then again clean it up and go at it again now if you lose a little bit of tape in the process just put some more tape there so you're protecting your paint in the trim around the headlight and this is going to be our final stage with the dual action sander and then we're going to move on to some hand wet sanding so this is what it looks like after the 1500 grit you can see we're kind of getting somewhere it looks a little bit more clear next up we have a 2,000 grit sanding sponge and I do this all by hand I do this for about five minutes as well and I continually wet the headlight and I go up and down side to side and this is a very important step this is right before the buffing process so you want to make sure you're really sanding down the other grit sand papers and making it look really smooth and really clean now we're going to get into the buffing portion of the job and I use a product made by great sits a medium grit buffing compound and I just use a three-inch pad on any electronic drill and I got a really nice hit off at Amazon for 14 bucks that includes like 22 buffing pads and it even gives you the little Chuck needed for their drill so this works perfectly for headlights and we're gonna go at this for about three to five minutes as well just make sure you cover the entire headlamp you don't need to go nuts with pressure here either and then we're gonna move on we're gonna do the exact same thing but with a lighter pad and also I use a Maguire kind of like a fine cut finish polish type of buffing compound and this is a very important stage I probably do this for a little bit more than five minutes make sure it looks really good I reapply some of the compound a couple times because this is basically going to be your final product before you apply the ceramic coating now after you do this you really want to make sure that you wipe this clean with some rubbing alcohol because now we're gonna do the ceramic coating and you don't want any leftover rubbing compound or wax before you apply it now this is just like the Trans Am hood it's super easy just a few little drips on the supplied microfiber cloth and applicator and you just rub it on and you immediately wipe it off with a fresh microfiber now you let this dry for about four hours and that's it you're done alright guys final result time and the c55 is looking fantastic this headlamp restoration turned out so nicely and that ceramic coating just adds like a whole nother level of clarity to the lenses they look practically a brand new and speaking of brand new the driver side is actually brand new the previous owner had the entire head lamp assembly replaced at the dealership so the chrome on this one on the inside looks a little bit more new and shiny than this one but overall they look fantastic and of course I have another plane coming by I apologize for the noise guys but I live right by O'Hare Airport in Chicago and this never ends every minute a plane comes by and tries to ruin my entire video but either way the car is looking great you guys are probably going to restore the headlights on your car that are of equal age and condition so they'll come out looking identical and I'm just really happy with this the car oh my gosh it just looks so good now now I just got to get rid of those guys which I have some new on the way here shortly and if you guys don't want to spend the hour or so to do the headlamp restoration you can always just hop on eBay and get these sweet looking frog headlights like on my c43 go away plain this never ends here's your out loud this is hang on [Music] okay I think I'm in the clear for maybe 30 seconds so we're gonna wrap this up but first check out the before and after pictures this is obviously before check out our disgusting this is and this is after this thing looks so good and I can't wait to continue on with the cosmetic repairs and slight modifications to the c55 like for example I'll be taking the front bumper off fixing the crack getting that all freshly painted we're gonna tint the windows we're gonna replace the wheels then I'm gonna buff out the whole car ceramic coat everything including the new wheels and this car is gonna look like a brand new C 55 now guys don't forget to check out the video description box I'll have linked everything you've seen in this video and there will be the link and coupon code to get $25 off of the ceramic coating it's legit 25 very easy to remember with that being said I have to clean up my massive mess in the garage because as you guys probably can imagine I have to leave for work in about an hour which totally sucks so if you guys like this video please hit that thumbs up button share the video these things have really helped me out and if you're new consider subscribing to the channel I'd love to have you so all my current subscribers thank you so much for all the support I hope that everybody has an awesome day and I will see you all in the next video I was having such a good time ceramic coding stuff that I decided to try this stuff out on the $200 c43 I think this hood was rattle cand and they didn't use any clear it looks absolutely horrible I cleaned it up with some rubbing alcohol and then my three-year-old son came out to help me he applied some of it and then I finished off half of the hood for him and look at the amount of color that is coming back this actually looks halfway decent and it repels water just like the Trans Am hood does its kind of cool and it goes to show you that you can coat practically anything that's all I got guys have a good one I will see you next video [Music] [Music]

Channel: LegitStreetCars

Views: 631,971

Keywords: headlight restoration, restore headlight, headlamp restoration, headlight restoration kits, ceramic coating, nano coating, how to restore headlight, how to restore headlights permanently, how to clean

Id: FhzrNrGQ41M

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 02 2018