Clear Plastics?

[YellowDime]

im re-doing the dash and the piece that covers the guages is cloudy as f*ck. How the hell do you get the cloudyness out of clear plastic? I've tried windex and other window cleaners and they dont seem to work worth a damn, i've had this problem on other cars and never could quite figure it out.

[kingkaspr]

well u can try and wet sand it with 2000 grit sand paper and use 3m polishing compound that should work i think

[JPowell]

I don't mean to sound like a spokesperson for Meguiar's website, but they have yet to let me down for quality products. Anyways, it sounds like you have a combination of micro-marring and perhaps a buildup of surface contaminations on your clear plastic. I'd recommend getting a mirror glaze plastic cleaner at your local paint supply store such as this:
and follow it up with either a clear coat polish such as Turtle Wax CCP, or a clear paint polish formulated specially for clear plastics such as this:

You're talking in the neighborhood of $20 for the two pictured above, but 8-oz each bottle will go a LONG way- if you have yellowed clear corners or dirty ones you can do them with these products as well as amber, red, etc. and get them back to new.

[gregoneck]

hey jpowell, that should work on factory headlights too right? mine look like they may be delaminating though. they have orange peel look at the top.

[JPowell]

Should work for surface contamination/yellowing/fading, not sure about delaminating and pitting.

[dillon_b12]

For just oxidation and yellowing, 3M Plastic Cleaner and 3M Plastic Polish are awesome. They also work great for bringing mirrors back to black and other plastic pieces. However, if your piece is pitted you are probably going to have to sand the shit outta it til all the pitting is gone, then wetsand with some 2000 and polish it up.

[black4.3]

You could wetsand with 1500 then 2000 then 2500 and use an abrasive polish to get the sanding marks out. Clear plastic polish is the easiet like the ones mentioned above. You could go to the automotive store and get some Megs PlastX. Its made for plastics and and has the cleaners and polish in one plus its only like 6 bucks.

[dropem555]

Quote: Originally Posted by xxWICKEDxx

im re-doing the dash and the piece that covers the guages is cloudy as f*ck. How the hell do you get the cloudyness out of clear plastic? I've tried windex and other window cleaners and they dont seem to work worth a damn, i've had this problem on other cars and never could quite figure it out.

have u tried using invisible glass mine was pretty cloudy and regular windex didnt work for me niether but invisble glass cleaned it up nice

[WTRacing]

id have to agree with the Meguiars stuff you cant beat it.. i would recomend that stuff to anyone

[MetallicA]

I used toothpaste, and it worked awesome for me!

[jchargu3]

As someone who daily works with plastics for the past 7 years... This is what I say

Use PLEDGE, Normal Lemon PLEDGE.... its going to take some time, but spray it ON THE RAG NOT ON THE PLASTIC, fold the rag together and rub it where you sprayed it, then open the rag up and go over the window in small swirling motions

USE DIAPER TYPE POLISHING CLOTHS, not a terry towel or anything else, it has to be really soft or you will scratch the plastic BADLY..

Wetsanding and buffing is not a good option because the plastics are so thin, you'll either CRACK it immediatly or burn right through it if you don;t know what you are doing

you can use the meguires stuff, or you can get 3m plastic polish, it works pretty well, but it'll sometimes scratch up the surface along with fixing the scratches/haziness.


I/Myself will one day be making my own plastic face to go over the gauges, it'll have a ghost lazer etching on it that'll only be visible at night with a certain light activated, it wont be visible at any otehr angles BUT the specially designed area... Its hard stuff to do

Another option is to completely replace the plastic "window" on the gauge face..


BUT, the best option by far is NORMAL PLEDGE...


Before people say no no no, listen to this:

1979 Kawasaki KZ1000 Touring bike, when my dad got it the window on it (made of plexiflass/acryllic) was HORRIBLY sunbleached YELLOW, it was about as yellow as YELLOWNOMAS truck... No joke.

By going out there every couple days with pledge and wiping down the windshield, the yellowness started to disappear more and more, along with the haziness. After about a month this YELLOw windsheild that you couldn't see through looked BRAND new.

1988 GMC S-15 (My Truck) My grandfather spilled his Copenhagen spit jar all over the place driving in the winter in PA... it hit the plastic, and stained it right where it landed, he didn't wipe it up becuas he was concentrating on driving in the sleet/snow. When he did get the truck home, he tried to wipe everything up and clean it, and it wouldn't come up..... Dad went out there with pledge and a rag, and 2 days later, it was amazingly smooth

LAST ONE:

1987 Honda Goldwing that my dad had bought, sat ina garage for 3 years, getting dusty, had stuff sutting on it and so on the windshield was PURE FOG when he got the bike, wasn't yellow, was just fog, so we used plastic polish, didn't get rid of it, we used a bunch of stuff, didn't get rid of it.... after some time of going over it with regular pledge, it was gone,... and crystal clear.

[jchargu3]

Toothpaste also works well but can be a bitch becuase its gritty, it can scratch the plastics...

use it with your finger, not a toothbrush

[kckess]

The Jeep guys use Pledge to restore thier soft top windows.