Headlight reflectors + Mothers Powerball and silver polish
 

My car originally had the 2 bulb reflectors, and the original headlights looked REALLY roached. The housings are solid rust, and the lens was broken out of one, and filled with coon crap, and the other the lens was intact but it was also full of dirt and coon crap.

I bought a set of 28/29 headlights from a member here that were the single bulb type, I planned on getting some different reflectors for them but thought I would try an experiment if my originals looked like they had a chance. I have a Mothers Powerball for my drill that I use on my Harley. I grabbed my silver polish I bought as well.

I opened up and cleaned up my old lights and yanked the reflectors. They looked really bad initially, but after some scrubbing looked like there was a chance. I did the worst one first. I only spent about 5 mins on each reflector as I really should have had a helper to hold them solidly.

The one on the left was initially much, much worse than the one on the right.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...A/DSCF1956.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...A/DSCF1957.jpg

I think they turned out well considering the circumstances and will be using them after all. I think with just a little more time on them they will look even better. I thought I would pass this along and maybe save some guys time and effort!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...A/DSCF1959.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...A/DSCF1966.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...A/DSCF1967.jpg

Re: Headlight reflectors + Mothers Powerball and silver polish
 

Nice job, that's great.

Re: Headlight reflectors + Mothers Powerball and silver polish
 

Yes, nice improvement!

Re: Headlight reflectors + Mothers Powerball and silver polish
 

They look fine now and the repro ones can rust out preety quick

Its often better to repair what you have than buy new

John Cochran

Re: Headlight reflectors + Mothers Powerball and silver polish
 

That "silver dip" tarnish remover worked well for me. You can apply it with a cotton ball. If you have lot of tarnish and try to get it all off with mechanical polishing, you can run the risk of overdoing it and polishing all the way down to the brass. Once the tarnish has been dissolved, you can polish gently.

Doug

Re: Headlight reflectors + Mothers Powerball and silver polish
 

Also with mechanical polishing, you create a tremendous amount of fine scratches that will lessen the refectability a lot. Best to use a silver dip and no rubbing, if you must rub, do so from center to edge in a straight line, no circular motions.

Re: Headlight reflectors + Mothers Powerball and silver polish
 

Here's a link that describes a non-mechanical soak to clean reflectors:

http://www.fordgarage.com/pages/reflectorcleaning.htm

I am going try it this summer when time permits.

Good Luck

Steve :)

Re: Headlight reflectors + Mothers Powerball and silver polish
 

I would probably have tried a dip, or by hand but these looked pretty bad. Much worse than they look in the pictures. They turned out very well and I look forward to lighting them up tonight and seeing how they do.