How to Clean a Commercial Headlight Lens
Keeping your vehicle headlight lenses clean is more than just a matter of aesthetics--it's a safety issue, too. Dirty, cloudy headlight lenses dim and obscure your view in dark and dangerous driving conditions. Light cleaning is fairly quick and easy, but heavy cleaning may be a more involved process. To clean the cloudiest headlight lenses, you will need to do lots of sanding and polishing.
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Things You'll Need
- Liquid dish soap
- Water
- Plastic lens polish
- Bucket
- Rags
- Old toothbrush
- Sandpaper in 600, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 and 2,500 grit
- Wood block
- Painter's tape
- Rotary sander or electric drill
- Polishing disc designed to fit your sander or drill
Instructions
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Slightly Dirty Lenses
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1
Squirt some liquid dish soap into a bucket and add water to create a soapy solution. Use clean rags to scrub the lenses with the soapy water. If necessary, use an old toothbrush for tough spots.
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2
Apply a single coat of plastic lens polish to the wet lenses with a dry rag. Move the rag in small circular motions as you apply it, then let it dry into a hazy coating.
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3
Buff away the dried polish using a clean, dry rag. Alternatively, use a polishing disc attached to a hand-held rotary sander or electric drill to buff the lenses faster.
Heavily Clouded Lenses
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4
Squeeze some liquid dish soap into a clean bucket and fill it with water to create a soapy solution. Wash the headlight lenses as best as you can using rags, old toothbrushes and the soapy water.
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5
Dry the parts of the auto frame surrounding the lenses, but leave the lenses themselves wet. When the surrounding area is dry, apply some blue painter's tape all the way around it to protect the vehicle frame during the later steps.
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6
Apply a single coat of plastic lens polish to the lens surfaces.
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7
Take a piece of 600-grit sandpaper and wrap it around a small wood block. Hold the sandpaper onto the block as you dip it into the bucket of soapy water. Use the wet, blocked sandpaper to sand the lens surfaces for several minutes. Applying firm, even pressure, sand in a side-to-side fashion and evenly across the entire surface of the lenses. Dip the sandpaper block back into the water every 20 or 30 seconds to keep it wet.
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8
Switch to the 1,000-grit sandpaper and repeat the process described in the previous step. After that, repeat it again with the 1,500-grit, then the 2,000-grit and finally the 2,500-grit sandpaper.
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9
Wash the lenses once more using soapy water and a rag, then rinse the suds away with clean water. Do not dry them.
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10
Apply another coat of plastic lens polish to the wet lenses using a clean, dry rag. Apply the polish in a circular motion. Let it dry for several minutes until it creates a cloudy haze.
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11
Attach a polishing disc attachment to your electric drill or rotary sander, and buff the lenses to a clean, clear shine.
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1
Tips & Warnings
When you've scrubbed your lenses as clean as you can using just water and cleaning solutions, they may still appear very cloudy. This means that the outermost layers of the plastic have become oxidized, which is a chemical change in the plastic, not just dirt. To remove the oxidation, you must actually remove these damaged outer layers, which is why sanding is a part of the deep-cleaning process.
