Polish, remove scratches from tail light lenses.

Randy · Last edited by Randy on Sun Feb 15, 2009 7:41 pm; edited 3 times in total

I was gong through some parts I nead to get rid of when I cam across my tail lights for my 2002 Sir.

I got these as spares with the car when I bought it a couple of years ago. The car had after market ones on.

Both are badly scratched up and one has a bad mark.

First I did the best of the two, I used 1500 water paper with soap to take out the deep scratches and followed up with a good rub down with turtle wax polishing compound.
I finished up with Meguiar's Plastx, a real good rub down with this stuff.

I used a flash for the first picture and no flash on the second.

For the bad one as it turns out it was glue on the lens to cover a crack. I scrapped the old glue off with a knife and then sanded the area with 120 grit paper. Clean the area and taped off the are to avoid runs from the crazy glue I used. Once the glue was hard I sanded it down again with 120 in opposite directs like you were doing bodywork. Then I went through the following grades of emery cloth.
120, 220, 320, 400, 600, 1500, Polishing compound, and then finished with Meguiar's Plastx.

The final results, not bad. If you get up real close you can barley see where the crack was.

After trying this on this car I would not hesitate doing my 78. Meguiar's Plastx is perfectly safe to use on your 1stgen. One other option that may be better than crazy glue is a solvent used for assembly of RC cars may do the trick too.

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Frankaj · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 7:36 pm Post subject:

Must be a good combination. They look great!

Randy · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 7:39 pm Post subject:

I just finished editing with the damaged lens.

Vulcan · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 3:37 pm Post subject:

That's some good work Randy. Cool

*Memo to self, must fix front indicator lens.*

Randy · Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:27 pm Post subject:

Hey! What the Huh, Why did those UK guys come up with a brainstorm idea that you have to take you bumper off to change the tail lights. What gives?

Out with the New!

In with the re-newed

Why couldn't my daily been a first gen? I even had to take out the interior in the back to get the lights out. For now I will leave the interior out and oil the interior panel in the spring. Anti_rust treatment.

Eduardo I. Nieves Davila · Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 5:43 pm Post subject:

i had done that before elot of times, it is the best thing to do on plstic( because clear coating falls off and looks darker. They turned ot very nice Very Happy

. If you finish it untill 3000 grit sanding paper and use rubbing compound of two grits( coarse and then light) and it will shine like paint Cool