Moisture in headlight

[harrellbenjamin]

Try starting with 80 grit and then work up to 220 on a 3" air powered D/A. To 600 as fine up as you want.If you have a proper sander the lens will sand out .If its really hard you can also use some WD40 as a solvent to help cut the lens.I do not recommend it as a normal thing but has got me out of some jams on the Impala light at times.

[Chips be-gone]

Ben
We all do not have a air D/A sander to work with. would be nice but that will be in time. I ran out of truck space at this time. no room for an air compressor.

[harrellbenjamin]

Electric or air not much difference just saying some time you need to get very aggressive on some lens.Use 80 to cut off the old contaminated or previously clear coated lens and work your way up the grit grades.Much easier than beating your head against the wall with 220 .JMO............

[TechEvo]

Do you have any bigger pictures to see it up closer, at least for me there coming across pretty small.
Thanks!

[GLASSTIME]

Being that most if all now headlights are plastic for starters , but. 2 piece construction
The rubber weather seal that's between the lense and the rear housing could be dry rotted.
We have seen this is a huge issue in the market. I personally do not offer this type of service (replacing the weather seal)
But I'm sure there are those out there that do.

Its hard to imagine that by just replacing the bulb would cause the moisture.

To answer how to get the moisture out, this is what we do.

We remove just the main bulb.
Insert our air nozzle and purge the interior of the lense until
Moisture has evaporated.

[candyman]

Iam a first time user of this site and new to headlight restoration. I have the delta kits headlight restoration kit. It takes me an average of 2 hours to do a set of headlights. I tape the area off and follow the instructions. The lights look great when I finish and the owners are amazed as well. Am I missing something. I hear people talk about it should only take 10-20 minutes. I also noticed many of the headlamps have moisture inside the lenses. I take before and after photos of all the cars I have done. Several of my clients were generated as a result of those photos or from watching me at a public YMCA do a clients Lincoln. The information I find on this site is very helpfull for someone like me starting out in this profession.

[Kgobin]

Candy Man,

It was good talking to you on the phone earlier! The amount of time taken to do a headlight restoration varies on the severity of the headlights and the vehicle make and model. Also, it is important to use the restore prep and clean the headlights thoroughly before starting the sanding steps. Removing moisture from headlights can be difficult and time consuming and in my opinion I would not tackle the task. It’s good to hear that the headlights look great and that the owners are amazed. Last but not least, welcome to the windshield repair and headlight restoration forum! Please continue to post your questions and progress.

[Brent Deines]

I have never had a headlight restoration job take over an hour, and most are more in the 30-40 minute range from start to finish. Delta Kits does have more sanding steps than other systems, however many technicians believe that not all of the sanding steps are necessary. While I want my completed jobs to look better than anyone else's jobs, I have to admit that I have skipped a couple of the sanding steps from time to time and once the UV coating is applied I cannot tell the difference. If I use 3 sanding steps instead of 6 it cuts my average headlight restoration job down to 30 minutes or less, and some of my employees are faster than I am and get...oh it pains me to say it...as good or better results.

Other than yourself I only have one customer that I can think of who consistently takes an hour or more to complete a headlight restoration job, but I have had a few customers tell me that they have run into some very difficult jobs that did require additional sanding to remove the original UV coating. One said that 320 was just not course enough for such jobs. Again, I have not run into that problem personally, but as Korey said, every job is a bit different and some require more time than others.

As for doing a set in 10 minutes, well I take nearly that much time just taping off the lens and prepping the lens surface, so I will probably never get that fast. I also have very high expectations so I don't mind spending a little extra time on the job to make it as good as I can possibly get it, but I really can't imagine how the average job could take more than an hour.

I agree with Korey that removing the moisture is typically not worth your time. Even if you get it removed it is likely to return unless you can find and repair the area that is leaking. Sometimes that is a hole in the lens, but often it is where the lens is pressed into the bucket, and those are very difficult to seal. My rule of thumb is that I will only do to a customer's car what I would do to my own, and if my headlight has moisture in it I would replace it. That's a judgment call however, so if you can dry out a headlight, seal it, and still make money on the headlight restoration there is nothing wrong with that. Although we get an awful lot of rain in Oregon, I can't say that I see a real high percentage of headlights with water in them.

How many headlight restoration jobs have you done so far?
How many of those have had moisture in them?
What part of the job is taking the most time?

[candyman]

5 last week and 2 had moisture; A 99 Grand Cherokee 255K miles and a Lincoln Towncar. I have several more scheduled to do this week. We had rain for the past week. I also have several windshields to repair as soon as I feel ready to tackle them. I have one vehicle winshield that has 2, inside the glass, cracks, the size of this, --- and just a little wider than two lines put together. Its almost invisible unless you know where to look. My thought when I saw it was, I would create more damage than what is there to repair it. They dont want it to run or replace the window, which I agree. any comments.

[Brent Deines]

What do you mean by inside the glass?

I'm not big on creating more damage. Why would you think that was necessary? Rarely, rarely, rarely do I ever find it necessary to drill or pop a bullseye, which is what I assume you mean by creating more damage, even on the smallest of breaks. If you use your probe and push gently on the impact point you should see movement in the break. You may see the ends of the cracks move slightly or you may see other air movement within the break. If I see that, which is almost always, I won't drill or otherwise create more damage.

Are you sure the damage reaches the laminate or is it just surface damage?