Mercedes E240 - Headlamp Restoration and Paintwork Enhancement

Good day folks!

Just recently detailed a Mercedes E240 that was in for two days. Wish I had more time as there was many things could be done to improve the state of the car. This car has never polished for three years and always washed at petrol station car washes. So there was a lot of grime buildup at the corners of the wheel.













The headlamps were also severely oxidized as there was cracking and blistering in the plastic, it was restored with machine and hand sanding, followed by machine compounding and polishing. Paintwork was also given a 'quick' polishing with the M105/M205 combo.

Although the car was clean to start with, it was in a pretty bad condition. The paintwork has water spots, moderate swirling and this gave it a hazy look to the whole car. This is how the car looks before doing anything.













So I began by cleaning the wheels, wheel wells and tires first. I spent a little too much time here and the results were also less than perfect, wish I had a polishing tool to get the wheel totally clean.



Tires were cleaned with Westley's Bleche White. Wheels cleaned with Carmate PS60 Brake Dust Cleaner. Cotton buds were used to get in the little small holes.











With the wheels out of the way, it was time to clean the bodywork. The car is foamed with a mixture of Osren Nano Wash(200ml) and Osren Multi Clean(150ml) diluted in a one litre bottle. As the foam was dwelling, I went around the car with some Meguiar's All Purpose Cleaner and a brush to clean tight areas such as window rubber trims, door mouldings, and panel gaps.











I then washed the car with a very light mixture of Chemical Guy's Citrus Wash and Gloss. Paintwork smoothened with Osren Magic Clay Cloth.





I then had a quick Chinese lunch, glutinous rice with chicken!



With the whole car fully clean, I turned my attention to restoring the headlamps first. I've never done this before but after reading some work examples and product descriptions of the net, you'll get the general idea.

The right side is after sanding, compounding and polishing.







Tools and products used:


Bosch GEX270-AE
Makita 9227C
Foam interface
Bosch 400 grit Random Orbital sanding discs
Generic sandpapers(600,800,1000,1200,1500,2000 grit)
Mirka 2000 grit sanding discs.
Meguiar's sanding backing pad.
Lake Country 3.5" Purple Foamed Wool
Lake Country 4" Orange CCS pad
Lake Country 4" White CCS pad
Meguiar's #105 Ultra Cut Compound
Meguiar's #205 Ultra Finishing Polish
A bottle of clean water and another bottle with diluted Presta Lubri-Sudzz.

Here's the condition of the headlamps before doing anything.











I then looked at under a magnifier.



I tried to capture what I saw with the camera, sorry if it's really blur, but you can see that the plastic has tiny cracks and blisters all over the surface.





So the objective is to remove the top layer of blistering and to restore the clarity to the plastic.

I started with sanding it down with a Bosch 400 grit sanding disc.





After every pass, I flush the headlamps with water and squeegee the lamps with a Meguiar's sanding backing pad to check my progress.



I sanded until I cannot feel the cracks or blisters on the plastic. The headlamps will have a uniform frosted glass look.



This is what it looks like up close and under the magnifier.





Also, don't forget to wear some eye protection as it can get a little messy.



Since I didn't have finer sanding discs, I resorted to hand sanding. Starting from 600 grit and working my way through finer grits, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 and 2000.



After hand sanding with 2000 grit.



The last sanding stage is done with Mirka 2000 sanding disc, I cut them out to fit on to my foam interface. Thanks to dschia for the tip!! This step is to try to sand away all hand sanding marks.



And you can see the haziness start to clear up after sanding with the Mirka disc.



I really love the disc and can see how gentle they can be when used for paintwork. The 2000 grit disc was also still not strong enough to quickly remove the hand sanding marks from the headlamps. So many passes were needed.

After that, I followed up with some M105 on purple foam wool and orange CCS pad. Then M205 with a white CCS pad for greater clarity. The lamps are protected with some Meguiar's PlastX, applied on like a wax instead of rubbing it in like a polish.





Buffed off and ta-da!!!





Up close,



Under the magnifier,



On the edge of the lamps, it wasn't perfect as I didn't feel comfortable sanding with a large disc near the painted surface, even though they were masked.



Before,



After,



With the headlamps done, I turned to the paintwork.

The process for the boot lid was:

M105/Lake Country 4ply twisted wool/1500 rpm
M105/Lake Country White Kompressor pad/900-1500 rpm
M205/Lake Country flat black pad/900 rpm

Before,


After,


50/50,



The rest of the paintwork received:

M105/Lake Country White Kompressor pad/900-1500 rpm
M205/Lake Country flat black pad/900 rpm

Before,

After,


Before,


After,


One thing bad about the Kompressor pads is that when they are freshly loaded with polish, the 'flaps' on the pad will have a greater tendency to leave polish in the panel gaps.



I was behind time at this point so didn't take much pictures of the correction process. It wasn't a full correction work but I tried to get rid of as many defects as possible. After polishing, the car was foamed with Presta Lubri-Sudzz to help dissolve polish residue in the cracks and then pressure washed away.



For the interior, leather seats were cleaned with Meguiar's Step 1 Aloe Leather Cleaner diluted with water and scrubbed with a nail brush. Plastic and vinyl wiped down with Meguiars Quik Interior Detailer, glass cleaned with Meguiar's Detailer line glass cleaner.





50/50





Dirt from the seats.



Paintwork was protected with the Werkstatt twins.



Dirt pulled out from the paint and surrounding rubber trim during the Prime:Acrylic process.



Tires dressed with Osren Tire Shine. Wheel wells with Meguiar's Hyper Dressing and mudguards with Autoglym Bumper Care.

Enjoy the pictures!















Many things could still be done, such as removing watermarks from the glass and polishing the wheels as they were not totally clean during the washing process. More time on the paintwork could also be beneficial.

Anyway, for the time given, I was happy with the results!

Thanks for looking!



Oh just a special mention of a few friends that also blog about their work if you haven't visited their blogs before in my list of links below.

My friend from Singapore does paintwork correction work and achieves great results...in a petrol station! Many people have the perception that petrol station car washes or polishing services are generally rubbish, but not Golden Wax - Shine My Car detailing. Some detailers have nice polishing studios to polish their cars in but he has to work in a less than desirable condition and environment, but still produce great results! Check out his blog at http://smcgoldenwax.blogspot.com/


Known as the super Malaysian Duo on the Meguiar's Online Forum, both KC and Seech detail on a part time basis.

KC is known for his super human polishing speed, detailing 4 cars in a day and his hand can wax a car faster than an orbital buffer! He only started detailing eight months ago but has detailed over a hundred cars, including Porsches and Ferraris!
Check out his work on his blog at http://thedetailers.blogspot.com/

Seech is known for his Porsche 911 Turbo Special Martini edition detail, where he sanded down the paint to reveal its true luster. Talk about courage! The detail was also featured in Meguiar's Online Newsletter. You just have to read that thread. Visit his detailing blog at http://prodetailing.blogspot.com/