GLASS headlight hazing

[kansaisubaru]

Hi. I know there is a post here about cleaning plastic headlights that haze, but I was wondering about glass headlights. I just bought new, brighter, whiter headlights for my car so I want my headlight glass sqeaky clean. How do you guys clean the glass so it's clear? My car is ten years old so it needs some help. Thanks

 

[digitaldrifter91]

get some water spot remover from the dealer or something that you rubb on the window. i use this green stuff from the dealer.

it will polish glass and get it nice and clean. try it. it has light abrasives in it

 

[car_junkie_moron]

quote:

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Originally posted by digitaldrifter91:
get some water spot remover from the dealer or something that you rubb on the window. i use this green stuff from the dealer.

it will polish glass and get it nice and clean. try it. it has light abrasives in it

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As he said, Go to walmart, grab a can or two of invisible glass, Works good on windows ( auto or home) so might work good on head lights also.

 

[Black03L]

maybe a glass polish? There are a few on the market but hard to find. I have used one and it worked great not on headlights but on a windshield.

Something like this http://store.yahoo.com/autopia/ag-4325.html

You might need something with a little more cleaning power than Invisible Glass has.

 

[kansaisubaru]

I went to Pep Boys today and saw a can of Invisible Glass. I then looked at it, but it didn't seem to have enough strength to clean and then polish my glass headlights. I then asked the guys working there and they showed me BlueMagic plastic polish. On the plastic polish bottle, it recommended Metal Polish Cream for some reason (for better results in polishing?) So I got a little tub of it. It's called BlueMagic Metal Polish Cream. What do you guys think? Will this clean up my headlights?

 

[darkdan]

It might. Go outside and try it out.

Maybe 3M rubbing compound would work too.

 

[kansaisubaru]

The BlueMagic did not do anything to the glass headlights. My main problem are the tiny little scratches in it from 10 years of service more than them being dirty. Does it look like my only real solution is to use something like a sander?

 

[darkdan]

What kind of headlights? Can't you just replace them? Or is the housing glass, but the bulb still comes out?

 

[kansaisubaru]

The bulb comes out. Well, the glass is not as in bad a shape as I may have made it sound. I just prefer having clearer glass. I wonder if the headlights with the multi-reflector are glass or plastic. I think most now are plastic.

 

[1sttruck]

Look at some of the sites on making telescope mirrors, as they have a full range of abrasives. I use 5 and 15 uM aluminum oxide on my leather strops for knife sharpening, and find that the 15 uM works ok to polish up the headlights on an 11 yr old Taurus. It is too fine to get all of the big scratches out, but I just wanted to take the haze off. The key with abrasives is to use a range, and to expect that reeaaaal smooth glass takes a long time to do by hand. If I were buying abrsaives for polishing headlights I'd probably start with something bigger, say 25 uM, and then finish off with 10 uM or so. Silicon carbide will work better than aluminum oxide on tempered glass, but I don't recall how fine of grit it's available in.