First of all I have to declare that the car I worked on is not a V8 W124 but I think it might be relevant anyway. It all started with this:
At first I thought it was dirt but upon closer inspection I decided to take a long look which led to this:
As you can see it still doesn't look like much even with the taillights removed but it did lead to this:
I cleaned it up with rust converter and this picture was taken immediately after the first coat. With the lenses out I decided to do a thorough cleaning of the lenses and reflectors. One of my pet peeves (some may call neurosis
) is residual wax/polish residue that resides in the nooks and crannies and this is the only way to restore that clean crisp look again.
This picture will show one of several abrasions that I wet sanded out until the scuffs and marks disappeared. This bad ridge looks like it was damaged/hit by a buffer spindle. Once done, it is pretty much invisible to eye and only noticeable to the touch.
I also cleaned and treated the rubber gaskets with conditioner. It is a good bet they have never been done in 25 years.
For me, it is one of those easy projects that cannot be measure by dollars and cents as I'm sure it's much easy to simply install new lenses although I believe they are currently NLA. I am into detailing and have the products anyway so it was a nice way to spend time outside in isolation. I am glad to have stopped that oxidation process as well.
At first I thought it was dirt but upon closer inspection I decided to take a long look which led to this:
As you can see it still doesn't look like much even with the taillights removed but it did lead to this:
I cleaned it up with rust converter and this picture was taken immediately after the first coat. With the lenses out I decided to do a thorough cleaning of the lenses and reflectors. One of my pet peeves (some may call neurosis
) is residual wax/polish residue that resides in the nooks and crannies and this is the only way to restore that clean crisp look again.This picture will show one of several abrasions that I wet sanded out until the scuffs and marks disappeared. This bad ridge looks like it was damaged/hit by a buffer spindle. Once done, it is pretty much invisible to eye and only noticeable to the touch.
I also cleaned and treated the rubber gaskets with conditioner. It is a good bet they have never been done in 25 years.
For me, it is one of those easy projects that cannot be measure by dollars and cents as I'm sure it's much easy to simply install new lenses although I believe they are currently NLA. I am into detailing and have the products anyway so it was a nice way to spend time outside in isolation. I am glad to have stopped that oxidation process as well.
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