TK427 Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Few weeks back I did these headlights and they were still pretty bad afterwards. I ended up doing two passes of 1500 grit sand paper and two passes of 2000 grit then two passes of SS&H and two of S&H and one pass of FMP..I ran out of battery power. So for now the headlight portion are clean and bright. .Thanks to the tips from the forum and <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com</st1:place>Adams polishes .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChargerMatt Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Seeing all these thread about how much trouble people go to to correct headlights... is that stuff from the "As seen on TV" just a gimmick? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK427 Posted October 5, 2011 Author Share Posted October 5, 2011 Seeing all these thread about how much trouble people go to to correct headlights... is that stuff from the "As seen on TV" just a gimmick? Some are and some are not! All I can say is this, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com</st1:place>Adams and some cheap 3M sand paper did the trick. Cost efficient and better then those kits in my opinion..I'm still trying to find all my before pics from a few weeks ago.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueGenCoupe Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Woah nice improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK427 Posted October 5, 2011 Author Share Posted October 5, 2011 Woah nice improvement. Thanks, it felt good to get this monkey off my back..I thought these headlights had no hope. <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comAdams</st1:place> proved me wrong . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perez Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 told ya it would work. get a corded drill. you can buy the cheapest corded drill from walmart and it works like a charm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian6 Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 if the oxidation is severe the ones that dont come with sandpaper wont work, and the ones the you just rub on def dont work as well as they say. great job on those lights tho, get that thing charged up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the1inblue Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 told ya it would work. get a corded drill. you can buy the cheapest corded drill from walmart and it works like a charm. +1. I use a black and deckard from walmart. It works great. Also I only do one pass of each polish. But whatever works for you. Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the1inblue Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Btw I did a similar style headlight. Here's an after picture. Bad cell phone pic sorry. Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris@Adams Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Nice improvement! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AudiOx Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 I did this about a year ago on my 'since sold' Audi allroad wagon. The headlights were in awful shape. I bought one of the $25 3M kits and this was the result. The only thing I did as extra protection (after the 3M kit work) was wipe on a thin layer of 1:1 mineral spirits+spar clear varnish with UV protection. I just used a blue paper shop towel to put this on. I had the car about 9 months after the treatment before selling it. Being parked outside 99% of the time, it still looked perfect. I paid to have these same headlights 'fixed' a few years before and it looked worse a year later. (I'll never do that again) I would definitely recommend this kit. I spent 110 minutes total to do both headlights including setup/cleanup and then another 20 minutes a week later to add the UV protection. PASSENGER'S SIDE UNTOUCHED OTHER THAN MASKING. DRIVER'S SIDE COMPLETE OTHER THAN UNMASKING AND CLEANING UP THE SLURRY RUNOFF. BEFORE AFTER COMPLETE INCLUDING CLEANUP & WASH (DURING MY PRE-2 BUCKET DAYS) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin@SwanCreek Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Awesome job!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the1inblue Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 I did this about a year ago on my 'since sold' Audi allroad wagon. The headlights were in awful shape. I bought one of the $25 3M kits and this was the result. The only thing I did as extra protection was put on a thin layer of 1:1 mineral spirits+spar clear varnish with UV protection. I just used a blue paper shop towel to put this on.[/Quote] So the 3m has the same results as doing it with adams. Only thing I see wrong with the 3m is that the avg novice person will have the possibility of burning through the headlight with the drill and sandpaper step. Other than that I can see it working out. Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AudiOx Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 So the 3m has the same results as doing it with adams. Only thing I see wrong with the 3m is that the avg novice person will have the possibility of burning through the headlight with the drill and sandpaper step. Other than that I can see it working out. Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk Potentially. For the amount of damage to my lights, I would've likely need at least some level of sanding anyway. If I did that by hand, the arguable risk is more uneven sanding. The Adam's polishing steps would seem to only replace the last step of the 3M kit. The other steps are fairly aggressive grits. It would be an interesting test comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TK427 Posted October 6, 2011 Author Share Posted October 6, 2011 +1. I use a black and deckard from walmart. It works great. Also I only do one pass of each polish. But whatever works for you. Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk Ya I was just looking at some today, and your right on the polish, but in this one case I had to do the extra passes:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the1inblue Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 Ya I was just looking at some today, and your right on the polish, but in this one case I had to do the extra passes:D That's understandable. I have do some extra passes if they are real bad. Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the1inblue Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 Potentially. For the amount of damage to my lights, I would've likely need at least some level of sanding anyway. If I did that by hand, the arguable risk is more uneven sanding.The Adam's polishing steps would seem to only replace the last step of the 3M kit. The other steps are fairly aggressive grits. It would be an interesting test comparison. I always sand by hand now in almost every set of headlights I correct. I go with 2000 grit and never had a issue with uneven sanding. To me I feel I have more control of how much im taking off the lense then with a drill. Sanding with a drill isn't in my comfort level. Also the 3m kit is like $18 a kit and they wont guarantee that one kit will do. As I see it buying sandpaper separately from the rest of the adams line I will still come out cheaper in the long run. I have confidence that it'll be done in the first pass. Im not knocking the 3m way just I prefer the adams way plus sanding. Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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