dhahlen

Before:





In Progress:





After:







Headlights needed some love too:

Progress:





All done!

MK_TT

Very nice, I was never a fan of the "blacked out" taillights on darker cars. Much better with stock

rmc1148

Big improvement not a fan of smoked tails either, headlights look 100% .

clorigo

I agree the tail lights do look much better stock! Did you do the headlights by wet sanding?

cannon1000

Please list products and procedures for the lights. They came out great.

SSST

WTG!

dhahlen

Sure.

I did the headlight with the 3M kit you can buy at autozone. After I figured how much of a waste it was (for me) I decided to stock up on all the other supplies.

I picked up Meguiars 3" sanding disks. I have the 3" backing plate for my DA (do not use them with a rotary or you'll regret it really quickly)

The tails had some thick paint on them, I did a lot of hand sanding (wet) with 220 grit to get the initial layer of paint off. After I removed a decent amount, I took the DA with 320 grit and ran over it. After I felt the sanding pad was losing some effectiveness I'd spray a bit of water.

Since the rear lights have a lip to them, I would go over the groove with my hand and a sanding block.

I then stepped up to 800 grit to remove the 220/320 grit marks.

I moved up to 1500 wet sanding. Again, the grooves were difficult to get to with the DA so I used 1500 with a sanding pad and my hand.

I then wet sanded with 3000 grit. Afterward, I finished with 3M rubbing compound and a light cut / polishing pad. Finally, apply a layer of wax to keep them protected. I'll likely do a UV treatment in the future.

The most difficult part of the job was removing the paint. After you get through the first cutting phase, it's really quick. I spent 80% of the time removing the first layer. After the paint was gone, going over the previous work with a lighter grit was quick.

Products Used:

-3M 220 Grit for hand application
-Meguiars 3" - 320 grit
-Meguiars 3" - 800 grit
-Meguiars 3" - 1500 grit
-Meguiars 3" - 3000 grit
-3M Rubbing Compound
-Light cutting pad
-Wax of choice

GreggT

Very nice.
I am going to paint my car black.....so I can do that too.

halik

Look great, blacked out tail lights belong on a 10 year old impala.

uschoice

+1 on that.

John McM

Is there a generic product to protect against UV?

911Königin

Terrific job