Restore Headlights

Hey, how's it going guys today? I'm gonna show you how to permanently restore yellowing headlights fast and easy Yellowing headlights is something very common in cars and not only do they look bad But they also have a very poor light output on the road at night What happens is this lens on the headlight is made of polycarbonate plastic And even though you can't see it this comes with the UV protective coating from the factory over time the coating wears off and Then while you're driving and leave the car outside in bright sunlight the UV rays coming from the sun is breaking down the polycarbon Instruction the lens so the color of the lens goes from transparent to yellow over time This gets even worse and starts to look like this Headlights look this bad can be restored like this But it has to be done quickly because over time the damage can spread deep into the lens and create little cracks known as crasings Like you see in this satellite right here Over time these cracks get bigger and destroy the lens so you can have to buy a new headlight Which could be expensive and that's how you need to restore your headlights before it's too late and the restoration process I'm gonna show you only has three steps starting with the first step You know rinse the headlight and the surrounding area using a microfiber towel to remove any dirt Then dry the headlight so we can move to the step two which is removing the top layer of yellowing plastic on the lens with some abrasives So I have some cutting compound Car polish and metal polish which are liquid abrasives and some sandpapers which are dry abrasives All these products contain al I'm gonna use a little bit of polish to bring back the factory s I mean here's the before and Here's the after the clarity is back just like in a brand new headlight So that's how you restore headlights with very bad yellowing using sandpapers But for headlights like this with only mine yellowing you can skip all the sanding work and start out with the compound So I'm gonna do this one real quick no sanding just compound although any good plastic polish will do so just get some compound on the pad and start buffing and Buffing until the headlight starts to look really clean and then wipe the headlight I'm also gonna use some ice-probol alcohol to remove any leftover compound and that is a brand new looking headlight So now you can move to the step 3 which is applying a protective coating on the headlight to keep the headlight from yellowing again And I'm gonna show you five common options So you could choose the one that makes more sense to you first you could use UV hard coat This is the most commonly used protective coating on headlights at the factory But this only comes in commercial quantities and you need to have a professional great spray gun and a compressor set up to use this You Also need a UV heat lamp to harden this on the headlight So as you can tell this is too expensive for most people at home and this only lasts about five years So this option is not the option for me Second you could use an aftermarket headlight coating these coatings are cheap to buy compared an OEM style coating and they came in spray cans You just spray a thin coat on Let the coating dry then apply a second coat and you're done This is actually a good option, but these coatings only last about a year So this option is also not the option for me third you could use a clear coats come in cheap rattle cans like this are acrylic clear coats and they only last few years before they start to peel That's why car manufacturers use 2k clear coat on cars Which is a poly-rhythm clear coat mixed with hardness because they provide more hardness Cheap and scratch resistance than acrylic clear coats They do come in rattle cans, but the manufacturers do not advise using these on headlights and they make special clear coat for headlights with Special primers to go with it even though these 2k clear coats can last a long time car manufacturers never use clear coat on headlights And one of the reasons is refraction of light changes its speed and direction when going through different medi You also want to clean your hands as well Otherwise, you're gonna leave fingerprints on the film Then spray down the lens and the film with water Place the film over the lens Then start squis Down with some water use the heat gun to warm up the film very lightly and then stretch the film around the curves and Then use short strokes until you get rid of all the wrinkles T I mean here's the before And here's the after Now t So