So I Tried Restoring My Parking Lights With Toothpaste

Before (oxidized and gross)

After wet sanding with 400 grit

After toothpaste and spray wax.

It's safe to say that I'm pretty pleased with the results, considering I just used stuff I had lying around.

I suddenly miss the Chevy truck I learned to drive on.

Minty fresh?

dean1484 wrote: Minty fresh?

Pretty much. I had to stop halfway through and grab a peppermint.

Unless you want to do it again in 6 weeks, remove the wax and clear coat them with your favorite brand spray paint.

In reply to chiodos:

I'll do that.

I saw on your build thread you might do it again anyways. Have you checked eBay for lights? Now hear me out, most look like crap and very distasteful but some are nice looking. The benifit is they are cheap, have clear lenses for better visibility (idk what they call the older factory stuff where on the inside of the headlight lense are "textured" for a lack of better word on the inside)

Reason I say this is dad has an expedition with quite a few miles and I would shine his lenses up (also where I learned the clear coat trick the hard way haha) and I bought him some ford lightning look alike headlights. Before he complained about how bad the night visibility was even with the shined up factory lights but after the lightning ones he says its like a brand new truck. And i didn't change the bulbs with the new lights so that's with the same bulbs he couldn't see with.

Again just a thought and I haven't even checked eBay for your trucks lights, they may all be tacky but dads are clear lense with the standard chrome reflector, looks stock unless you own a ford truck of the same era and know.

In reply to chiodos:

I can get new, NSF certified, factory-style ones for $28 CAD shipped from Rock Auto. Considering that's just as cheap as a 3M refinishing kit, I might as well spring for those.

I think I paid $20 for my parking lights and another $20 for the sidemarker lenses on Amazon for my Chebby C1500.

Of course that was because I broke them ramming my truck in to the back end of a Honda.

Tried to renew the tailights with different abrasives with no luck. Another $80 on Amazon for shiny new ones.

I found glass headlight replacements on fleabay for $53, they normally run from $85 - $130.

Be patient.

In reply to 914Driver:

Mine's a post-facelift GMC model, so it's pretty much plastic or bust for me. Sweet C1500! Can you tell me more about it?

I forget what I used on my Disco.. I think it was a 3m product. It's been six months since I sanded the lights down and then polished them up.. they have not gone back to hazy yet

In reply to mad_machine:

That kit's $30 up here, so it's almost $2 cheaper to buy new parking lights.

G_Body_Man wrote: In reply to 914Driver: Mine's a post-facelift GMC model, so it's pretty much plastic or bust for me. Sweet C1500! Can you tell me more about it?

all the composite headlamps 90-98 are same regardless of which grill you have. 88-89 had miniquad glass bulbs.

In reply to patgizz:

Huh. I never knew that.

In reply to G_Body_Man:

The rock auto lights if purchased for a couple of cars. They even come with bulbs on most of them also

Plastic polish from Mequiars works pretty good on plastic lenses also

G_Body_Man wrote: Can you tell me more about it?

Bought it in north Gerogia with 63,000 miles on it. 350, 2WD, auto. Gets 18 mpg at 70 on the highway. ZERO rust. Paid $2,000 and $600 to ship it to New York. Starting to rust now that it lives up here.

It too had plastic headlights until I bought replacements, the chrome was flaking off the reflector wall.

I wonder if sunscreen will work on plastic?

400 grit is pretty coarse for a lens. When I do headlights, I use 1000 / 1500 / 2000 wet with soapy water, then I hit them with the lens polish liquid on the sponge ball in the cordless drill.

I use 1500/2000 wet with detail spray on the light and the sand paper. I then hit it with Plast-x on my rotary with a wool pad. Then follow up with polish on my Porter Cable and finish up with a sealant.

^^^^ yeah i need to do that. i accidentally got brake cleaner on the lenses on the 9-7x when i was switching the engine out, and they need the wetsanding treatment.

I used Meguairs liquid rubbing compound on my Miata lights. It worked out well.

In reply to thedanimal:

Nice! What do you use for the sealant? Clear coat for plastic, or something else?

Lamin-X mylar stuff?

Anybody tried the bug spray and old sock trick?