VX220 Lights Repair

Soldato
Joined
17 Oct 2002
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7,169
Location
Ipswich
Following on from the thread about my car being keyed, I repaired both of my rear lights this weekend.

The nearside rear had a scratch all the way across it, about 1.5mm deep, very visible and easily catches your nail as your pass your finger across it. The offside one was scratched about an inch too.

I bought a MicroMesh perspex repair kit from an aircraft supplier who sell them for removing scratches from aircraft canopies. It consists of a foam block, 6 different grades of MicroMesh which is a special fabric based wet abrasive, 2 cotton wipes and some MicroMesh finishing compound.

The kit said to use coarse wet and dry paper, down to 220 grade to remove traces of the scratch, I opted for a more cautious 400 grade. That took about an hour to do both lights, the key is to do it slowly and to reove all traces whatsoever.

Next, starting with the most course MicroMesh, rub only in one direction for a few minutes, I did 3 passes of each light, wiping it down in between. Repeating for all grades, eventually ending at 6000 grade, which is about as coarse as A4 paper...

Finally rubbing using half of the cloth wipe in one direction, using quite a bit of pressure with the cloth wrapped tightly round the block. After a few minutes rubbing the lights were looking pretty damn good, though still some scratches left though.

So I then got the Mer scratch repair drill attachment out and put a plastic bag over it, the cloth then tied and taped it together. I then went over the lights a couple of times using a fairly low speed and just the end of the pad, finally washed them and the results are below. They are pretty much optically perfect which I'm quite happy with.

http://www.muncher.org.uk/lights

scratch_0807.jpg


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Soldato
Joined
11 Apr 2004
Posts
19,807
:eek:

Wow! That's amazing work! What I want to know is how the hell does sand paper end up making a surface smooth and shiny like that.

Top job :cool:
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Nov 2002
Posts
3,107
Top job!

I'm very impressed with the way you've undertaken all this repair work yourself, in your own time, with miniumal experience, turning out excellent results. Given the circumstances surrounding the initial damage, it's been an excellent attitude to take - hats off!

:)
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
7,169
Location
Ipswich
Thanks :)

The paintwork repair is still in its early stages, I'm away for a week so will crack on when I get back. I made a few early attempts, and stopped to revise for my finals after covering with a rough, thick layer of paint.

They're not back on the car yet, they're just drying out then I'm going to seal both with mastic while they're off, to prevent any leaks.

The initial sandpaper is what you'd expect, but the MicroMesh is like leather, even the most coarse grade is still extremely smooth.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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3,074
Location
MK
very impressed!

And look on the good side, with all this slight sanding, your car will be slightly lighter than other cars in the class!

I need to get rid of some scratches in my car, one of my rear arches got keyed :( Cant wait to do it, only after i finish my final exams thou.

I guess as long as you have the paitents, you can have a great result!
 
Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
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95,522
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I'm back baby!
I still need to sort out the keying my car got when I was on the liverpool meet. Had a mate's mate trying to fit me in but he's well busy. Would only cost £15 there :/

nice work Muncher
 
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