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Just wanted to show off a recent headlight restoration progress. Looking to slowly make the G35 look and feel better with a lot of little quality-of-life updates. I will eventually post a sort of "In Progress" style listing of all the bits and pieces of the G that I want to improve on before spring, but I'm not 100% sure where to put those just yet, let alone even if this is the correct location for this.
anyway, I'd love some feedback on that.
In any case, I'm here cause I wanted to start somewhere.
So without further ado, my newly restored headlights!
I'll just upload pics and let y'all see the sweet, sweet difference. After! Night and Day difference. Quite literally, actually. The after light-on-the-garage test the before light on the garage test Pass Before Passenger After. Final Product passenger side Before starting. Passenger side The Half-Way point Half-Way-Garage-Light-Test First round of sanding Wipe after the first round of sanding second wave of sanding wipe after the second wave spraying down for the 3rd wave of sanding after 3rd wave of sanding wipe after third round sanding 4th round sanding wipe after 4th round sanding. Product used for those interested.
Definitely an improvement. I didn't see it in the pics, so I'm assuming you didn't complete the process with a UV-protecting clearcoat? You should do that or they're going to yellow again fairly quickly.
I re-finished my '04's headlights with the $12 3M kit from Oreilly's. Came with 1k and 3k sand paper + clear coat pads. It worked great, pleasantly surprised. Been almost a month, and they havent faded.
I've used the harbor freight refinish kit in the past. They work great initially, but give it a few weeks or so and they'll fade again b/c no clear coat.
Definitely an improvement. I didn't see it in the pics, so I'm assuming you didn't complete the process with a UV-protecting clearcoat? You should do that or they're going to yellow again fairly quickly.
it isn’t currently being driven, but that’s good to note. May need to acquire some clear coat before too long.
how quickly would you say they’d yellow again without it?
Originally Posted by andrewl_v35
I re-finished my '04's headlights with the $12 3M kit from Oreilly's. Came with 1k and 3k sand paper + clear coat pads. It worked great, pleasantly surprised. Been almost a month, and they havent faded.
I've used the harbor freight refinish kit in the past. They work great initially, but give it a few weeks or so and they'll fade again b/c no clear coat.
noted! Seems like I just was unaware of the UV coating step. I did polish it, but I’m unsure if that includes any sort of UV protection.
It probably depends on how much sunlight they're exposed to. Maybe being in the northwest would buy you more time than being in the south. I'd say within a year though you'd notice. I did mine 3 or 4 summers ago and they still look good (although my car is garaged).
I used one of the 3M sanding/polishing kits along with a two-step UV blocking clear coat from
Everyone else who said it is right, you definitely need a clear coat on those lenses or they will be yellow again quickly. The first time I did just a lense cleaning in the spring they were yellowing by the end of the summer.
I used one of the 3M sanding/polishing kits along with a two-step UV blocking clear coat from Sylvania.
thanks for that link! After seeing yours and another one, I am hard pressed to say I did a good enough job. Thanks for the link! Will likely check that stuff out.
Originally Posted by srv2nv
Everyone else who said it is right, you definitely need a clear coat on those lenses or they will be yellow again quickly. The first time I did just a lense cleaning in the spring they were yellowing by the end of the summer.
oof, that’s quick. Alright. Yeah, I’m gonna pick up a kit for UV, and maybe even run it through a second round of refinishing. As much of an improvement as it is, I think there’s still more that can be polished up.
anyone have tips on how to rid the interior of fog/moisture/residue?
I forgot to mention that the clearcoat also made a big difference after the last polishing step. It made the plastic lens looks almost brand new again, including the rainbow/prism effect when light hits it at certain angles, like a new headlight.
The only thing it didn't fix were the clearance strips inside the headlights had also yellowed a bit. Not that you have to worry about that on the sedan.
Mine came out pretty good, never had to wetsand them but they will never be perfect because some of the lens has surface cracking. Compounded and polished them, then sealed with the soon to be released (I'm a tester/certified coating installer) Optimum Opti-Coat 3. 6 weeks after application they are still clear. With regular Opti-Coat it was a monthly thing polishing and coating them. But this version is layerable and has a thicker film build. And its nice the lights are staying bright this long. I do have the upgraded Osram D2R bulbs so that helps too.
I have a better pair of headlights that I got from Michigan but I'm going to have them retrofit first before swapping them out. I got a buddy who does PPF, probably have him put some UV film over the replacement lights.
