Techno Duck

Anyone try this product from Permatex?

Link

Saw it at the local autostore while buying bulbs, looked interesting but didnt think to buy it as my headlight lenses are both brand new and glass. But then i remembered my sand blasted cloudy foglight lenses. Basically involves wetsanding the plastic lenses smooth and polishing them afterwards. You dont neccesarily need to buy the Permatex kit as they actually list the seperate products you need, but just seems like it would eliminate the step of finding everything else. Anyway it seems promising? Any one try this? Going to pick it up this weekend and give it a shot.

Id love to just buy new foglight lenses, but at $70 each..i have better things to spend money on! BTW, anyone know where i can buy any type of lense protector for the fog lenses? One of mine is cracked and would like to prevent it from happening again. I saw a set on eBay a few weeks ago but cant find the old auction. Thinking of maybe buying some aftermarket lamps that wouldnt look out of place in the stock mounting locations...this way i can run some 100w bulbs... .

Granite 944

I've never tried sanding/polishing plastic lenses before, myself, sooooo, I've no input there.

As far as running the 100w lamps instead of the original 55w lamps, I'd just be careful, as the stock wiring isn't good enough for the 100w lamps, and even, if you have Iceshark's upgraded wiring for the fogs, I'm really wondering about the heat generation from the higher wattage bulbs taking its toll on those poor lenses and softening them up, and making distortion/rock chips and such even worse, and shortening the bulb life. Then, factor in the fact that you might put covers over those lenses to boot, thus trapping in more heat. I have the Iceshark kit in one of my cars, and burned up both fog lamps in it, in no time, using the 100w bulbs. Wiring part is just great! Heat generation inside those closed lenses.......I think is the problem to consider.

Preformance Products has the cover lenses for sale, IIRC. I've got an older set of smoked color lenses that came off a parts car, that showed signs of heat problems..........and the lenses underneath were toast. I really don't know for sure, as I've got to get into this MUCH further at some point myself, butt, I just caution you as to what I've seen so far myself. Good luck!

Burma Shave

We restore plastic lights all the time at the shop (or rather our prepper does). He sands them with 1000 grit on an orbital sander until clean and then one or two coats of urethane clear. Looks great and lasts quite a while.

White Pony

Takes awhile to do, but I've used Turtle Wax Polishing compound and 1500 grit wet sanding before to restore headlights for people whose cars I've detailed. The Urethane sounds like an AWESOME idea, would shorten the process for sure.

Techno Duck

Would any run of the mill clear coat work? Ive got a couple cans of Duplicolor clear coat in the basement..i always seem to loose the can, buy a new one and find the old one when i get home. Not sure if its urethane based or not.

Crunky

I've never tried it myself, but I work for CSK Auto and my customers all tell me that it works great. Just remember to wear laytex gloves when using the chems....

Tony K

That polish is for plastic. Your fog light lenses are glass. For what the lenses cost, I'm guessing they are lead crystal.

To restore your glass lenses, you need some glass polishing compound:
http://www.eastwoodco.com/shopping/p...keyword=40011B

Use it to get the tiny little specks out of your windsheild while you're at it!

KuHL 951

Tony beat me to it, they're glass. I tried polishing out a pair of lightly pitted fog lights on the 83. It just wasn't worth all the hard work to me even with a buffer. It didn't get the larger pits at all. Now I keep the plastic protectors on them.

Mike1982

Tony, you back on here now??...

Techno Duck

Phew, glad i asked first. For some reason i thought the lenses were plastic. Looks like ill eventually just bite the bullet and buy new lenses plus the protectors from Automotion.

Currently im looking around for a set of aftermarket lights which will fit into the stock location without looking to out of place.. Hella has a few kits which look promising, i just need to check the dimensions. Would like to run some 100watt driving lights, going to make use of the positive pigtail on Iceshark's headlight wire harness. This way ill be pumping out some 400watts of lighting power total... .

Tom

The cheapest foglight protector I've found is some clear heavy duty tape (3-M decorator and repair tape if you can find it) gives the car a bit of a competition look.

Tony K

Techno - I know you can buy that 3M film in larger quantities for less money than Automotion will charge for anything they have. Also, someone offers an "optical grade" clear film -- I just don't remember if it is 3M or someone else.

Mike -- I was surfing the web, found that funky blue 944, and thought I'd post it up on here, as I know there are several anorak/historian types here -- was hoping someone might have a good nugget of information about factory special paint, etc. . . But I'm thinking "thorough color change a long time ago" for that blue 83 . . .

But I don't intend to post much, as one of the $18 heroes will inevitably bitch that someone (like me) has over 1000 posts and isn't a paid member (regardless of the quality/usefulness/contribution of any of those previous 1000 posts).

I see that we still have multi-page threads about turboing an NA, where a bunch of people chime in to say that the thread shouldn't even exist!

I'll be in and out of here a little every now and then, I think.

Techno Duck

Tony, i mentioned it breifly earlier in the thread. But i saw these plastic covers, not the rock guard film that ive seen at a few other vendors..i saw a set on eBay a few weeks ago which were available in smoked, amber and clear, but the link is long gone. They looked like pieces of maybe lexan (or a equally strong clear plastic) that went over the fog lenses. I was under the impression the ones from PerformanceProducts / Automotion were the same type? They are about $50 for the set..and if they are indeed the film, hell ill cut something out myself!

I thought about just buying that 3M film..any idea where i might be able to find it locally? Is it normally carried in autostores?

Tony K

I think the stuff for headlights is way different from the commonly-used film for protecting paint, etc.; not sure though, but I know anything you put over the lights will have to have high heat tolerance.

So for finding something specific to protecting lights, I'd probably hop on 3M's web site, find a specific product, and then look for a distributor. My first guess would be auto body supply places. Many of them will sell to any walk-in.

Wish I could be more help. Call one of the more thoughtful, intelligent vendors and ask them for specs on the fog light protectors they offer. Or shoot an email to www.danielstern.ighting.com -- ask him if there is any such product on the market.


Just for fun, here is some optical grade film -- might be overkill, though?
http://www.optigrafix.com/ocgrade.htm
http://www.profilon.us/profilon.htm

Cheers,

Tony

Tony K

One more thing -- I've thought in the past about paying a lot for lens protectors . . . but for how much some of them cost, why not just save my money now and buy new lenses entirely later? (Hence my idea to fiind the source product and cut them one's self . . . )