Repairing the damage of goof-off and plastic...

[Kruzen]

I know this is in the wrong place but I can't even think of an appropriate thread location..

I was cleaning some residue off of my motorcycles wind visor and stupidly used goof off and now its hazy and looks "wonderful" in a decent spot.

Anyone know of a way to fix haze/smudging caused by goof-off or any solvent on a translucent plastic surface?

[uofom3]

umm check s14.net... magnus has a thread about this exact topic and he appeared to do just fine with the goof-off technique

[BDSax]

i know that you can buff plastic. i cleaned bugs off of my old lincoln ls and scrubbed to hard on the headlights and they were all hazey. Use a medium grit first then move to a finishing grit, looks brand new.

[Kruzen]

umm check s14.net... magnus has a thread about this exact topic and he appeared to do just fine with the goof-off technique

He used goo-gone, not goof off. Goof off is a horribly deadly solvent that I think is acetone based, not citrus based like goo gone.

:(

BDSax, do you have some more details on the proper way to do that?

[LINUS]

How bad is it? You might have to go all the way with an orbital sander and treat it like paint to get it smooth, then get some plastic polish, they sell it at Napa, or hit up Derek and see what's in the Griot's lineup to fix this. I don't think there's anything plastic specific, but I have had great luck with taillights treating them like paint and colorsanding my way up, then using a very mild cutting polish to finish it out.

[Kruzen]

How bad is it? You might have to go all the way with an orbital sander and treat it like paint to get it smooth, then get some plastic polish, they sell it at Napa, or hit up Derek and see what's in the Griot's lineup to fix this. I don't think there's anything plastic specific, but I have had great luck with taillights treating them like paint and colorsanding my way up, then using a very mild cutting polish to finish it out.

I ordered some 3m plastic polish and plastic cleaner and one of their microfiber application rags, i'll give that a shot.

I'm not familiar with paint prep stuff with sand and all that but I'll look into that I guess.

If worse comes to worse i'll slap a big sticker over top of it or buy a new windscreen :p

[losrobbins]

Damaged plastic headlights.

I, too, used Goo Gone to get a sticker off my headlights and ended up with cloudy, damaged headlights. I went to Auto Zone and found some 2000 grit sandpaper made by 3M. The front label on the sandpaper suggested that it be used in conjunction with 3M rubbing compound. It took some elbow grease -- and I used 4OOOO steel wool on the really bad parts -- but it worked. You can see through the headlight into the guts, again, and you have to look really close to see that there was a problem.

[bimmerboy08]

Meguiars makes a plastic polish that I used to keep the windows of my jeep wrangler's soft top looking good, and it should help you with your problem. You can find it at auto zone/advance.