What Is Restoring Headlights, Several Ways of Headlamp Restoration

What is headlight restoring?

Until now, many people in the world know little about headlamp restoration, they just change the whole headlamp when the headlamp function is not so good.  In fact, we can regard the headlight assembly as an integral part, just like the gearbox and engine of the car, which has its own independent structure and function. Therefore, the damage of one part does not mean the whole component, which can be repaired, so we called this headlight restoring.

When our headlights are valuable, it's more economical to repair them than to replace them. As long as our headlamp is well repaired and restored, our headlamp can be the same or newer than before.

Different from other parts, restoring headlights requires care and patience. Some people often ignored this point, resulting in poor appearance after restoring. It is recommended that we leave this work to professionals. However, if you are hands on, you can restore it yourselves.

Then let’s see what kinds of headlamp can be restored?

Aged headlamp or scratches on lamp surface

Over the years, affected by automobile exhaust, ultraviolet rays of the sun, chemicals and other reasons, the headlamp becomes old and yellow, cracking oxidation and other phenomena, reducing the lighting performance.

In this case, there is no need to change the headlamp, three ways for restoring.

The first way, polishing

Choose the right sandpaper from 320# to 2000# according the degree of aging, polish from coarse to fine, and then use 3M mirror wax for polishing. 

The advantages of this way is low cost, convenient and fast while the disadvantage is not durable, the surface of the wax loss, the lamp surface blurred again.

The secondly way, lamp renovation

Polishing the cracks with right sandpaper from 320# to 2000# according the degree of aging are polished off, and then use a special potion to fumigate on the headlamp to make it shiny as new.

The third way, replace the new lamp shell.

Replace the old lamp shell with a new one to make it look just like new. 

Damaged headlamp shell or rear housing base

When the headlamp cover is damaged, no need to replace the whole headlamp, directly replace the new lamp shell. There are many lamp shell available for most car models in the market now. 

When the rear housing base is broken, it is complicated but can also be saved by replacing the rear housing or just repair it. It is recommended to install the headlamp shell and housing base in a professional lamp shop.

Water or fog in the headlights

In our daily life, we often find our headlight with fog or water inside, what’s wrong?

If slightly fog, it’s ok because of the difference of temp and air humidity inside and outside of the headlamp. Usually this fog will dissipate within several hours or next day and it is no big deal. It ‘s a normal phenomenon, however, we can solve this problem quickly by placing a bag of desiccant in the lamp.

If the fog has not dissipated, or there is water droplets hanging on the headlamp wall, it is water problem

First we need to find out what causes the water, is there a slight collision or friction or the car? Repair it by replacing the shell or housing is ok.

If there is no broken of the headlamp, then we check the glue. The aging of the glue leads to water and fog of the lamp. In this case, we need to re-seal the headlamp. Open the headlamp and clear the original glue and then seal with new glue. 

Ok, today we talked about several ways of restoring headlights, if you have any questions or need any technical support, contact us at [email protected].