Brighten up!

We have been noticing that the Jeep's headlights were pretty hazy and when we drove back from Kim's after dark (we're usually not often out after dark), we really felt like they needed attention. Carl had ordered a kit from Amazon so we decided to try it out this week:

We used the 3M Ultra Headlight Restoration Kit

"Before" driver's side

"Before" passenger side

"Before" turn signal on passenger side was also pretty hazy.

The kit provided everything needed except a drill (which Carl has).

The kit provided tape to put around the lights so the sanding process would not damage nearby painted surfaces.

The process started with 500 grit sanding disks...

The instructions encouraged us to do a very complete job with this step as subsequent steps would be easier.

That was followed by a 800 grit disk, also recommended that you do a complete job with this before moving on...

... and then wet sanding with a 3000 grit disk -- we sprayed the disk and the headlight with water as Carl sanded it.

Finishing up on the driver's side - you may already be able to see the difference between the "done" side (driver's) and "not yet started" side (passenger).

Continuing on with the passenger side.

We made a little mistake on the passenger side -- we had noted that the haziness was concentrated to the two sides and not bad in the middle, so we thought it would be best to concentrate the early sanding in the side areas. It turned out that we think we would have gotten better results if we had sanded evenly over the whole lens (as we had done on the driver's side).

Carl also did the turn signal on the passenger side.

The final step was to put a clear coat over the completed lenses. The directions cautioned us to use plastic gloves (provided) for this step.

There were actually two cloths with clear coat on them that were to be applied about 15 minutes apart.

Finished lens driver's side

Finished lens passenger side

Finished turn signal lens

We were pleased with how they came out (the instructions indicated it would take about 45 minutes to do the complete job, but it took about 2 hours for us). And we felt like the headlights worked a lot better when we drove back from Kim's on Wednesday evening and each evening since then, even in the rain.