My front side marker light lenses and front turn signal lenses were getting cloudy so I thought I'd try the Meguiars headlight restoration kit. It worked well enough on the side marker lights but the front lenses are recessed too far for the buffer to be effective. There also seemed to be a clearcoat on them that had kind of crinkled up on the upper half of the lens and was gone completly on the lower half. I figured it would be easier if I could get at the lenses so I got out the service manual to see how they come out. Step one is "Remove the front fascia". Being just one step, I figured "how hard can it be" and started removing the 525 little screws holding everything together.
It was easier to work on it with the nose in the air.
Looks odd without the nose.
Of course, nothing seems to go as planned. The crusty coating was well beyond the capability of the polishing compound. So I got out my box of Micro Mesh, same stuff I used to fix up my roof panel. Micro Mesh is basically a series of emery cloth of progressively finer grits, it's used to restore aircraft plexiglass windows. In the kit I got, the coarsest starts at 2400 and the finest is 12000. The wrinkly coating was too much for even the 2400 so I started with 400 grit sandpaper on the worst parts then moved on to 600, 1000 and 2000. Then went with the Micro Mesh through all seven grits they have then finished off with a hand application of the Meguiars headlight polish and a coat of wax.
It's so transparent that it's hard to get a picture.
As often happens, what you expect to be a 30 minute project can turn into a 4 hour ordeal.
While everything was apart I was able to remove about 5 pounds of leaves and a couple pine cones that the previous owner had somehow managed to get up under the bumper.
Marv Harris - Tampa
96 CE - LT4
marvyn741
redvette89
