When Porsche designed the brilliant Boxster they went to a lot of effort to make sure that it didn't upstage its big brother, Mr 911.
This included performance and cosmetic downgrades. The most obvious being the awful amber/orange headlights. For those of us who are mindful of our budget, purchasing a set of clear/smoke headlights from a 996 Carrera is not just prohibitively expensive but difficult to find too.
There is a lot of talk around about whether or not the standard orange/amber headlights of the Box can be made clear.
I got tired of reading forums so decided to get out the tools and find out for myself...
The bottom line is this. Yes, it can be done but it is a mission of a task. And if you are not confident in your abilities with power tools don't even try!
This is what I did:
1. Remove head light and grind/sand away the amber portion with a belt sanded equipped with 80 grit belt until as much of the orange is off as possible - this stuff is HARD! Don't cut into the clear underneath. this is where you will decide how brave you are. This is not a 5 minute job so give yourself time.
2. I then swapped out to my mouse sander with 120 grit and smoothed out all the rough left by the belt sander. when I was happy that all the big scratches were out, I switched to 240 grit and did the same again.
3. At this point I now switched to a sanding block with wet and dry paper of 400 grit and carried on by hand with lots of clean water. I suppose you could still use the power sander but I didn't have 400 grit pads for it so it wasn't an option for me.
4. When the new "clear' lens was all sanded smooth and all marks were out, I switched to 600 grit wet and dry paper. As my headlight had some scratches and was rather oxidised, it was at this point that I started to sand the whole light. I then moved to 800 Grit and did the same. remember to keep using lots of clean water. You don't want to get a piece of grit under the paper and scratch the lens again.
5. I then used a cheap "Turtle wax" headlamp restoration kit to polish up the headlight as per the instructions. This takes another serious amount of time to do right. The 3M kit is way better but mine was finished and this was good enough for this experiment.
6. Fit the new 'Smoked' headlight corners. These are ridiculously expensive for what they are but I suppose that's just part of owning a Porsche
7. Stand back and be amazed at how awesome your Boxster now looks
This included performance and cosmetic downgrades. The most obvious being the awful amber/orange headlights. For those of us who are mindful of our budget, purchasing a set of clear/smoke headlights from a 996 Carrera is not just prohibitively expensive but difficult to find too.
There is a lot of talk around about whether or not the standard orange/amber headlights of the Box can be made clear.
I got tired of reading forums so decided to get out the tools and find out for myself...
The bottom line is this. Yes, it can be done but it is a mission of a task. And if you are not confident in your abilities with power tools don't even try!
This is what I did:
1. Remove head light and grind/sand away the amber portion with a belt sanded equipped with 80 grit belt until as much of the orange is off as possible - this stuff is HARD! Don't cut into the clear underneath. this is where you will decide how brave you are. This is not a 5 minute job so give yourself time.
2. I then swapped out to my mouse sander with 120 grit and smoothed out all the rough left by the belt sander. when I was happy that all the big scratches were out, I switched to 240 grit and did the same again.
3. At this point I now switched to a sanding block with wet and dry paper of 400 grit and carried on by hand with lots of clean water. I suppose you could still use the power sander but I didn't have 400 grit pads for it so it wasn't an option for me.
4. When the new "clear' lens was all sanded smooth and all marks were out, I switched to 600 grit wet and dry paper. As my headlight had some scratches and was rather oxidised, it was at this point that I started to sand the whole light. I then moved to 800 Grit and did the same. remember to keep using lots of clean water. You don't want to get a piece of grit under the paper and scratch the lens again.
5. I then used a cheap "Turtle wax" headlamp restoration kit to polish up the headlight as per the instructions. This takes another serious amount of time to do right. The 3M kit is way better but mine was finished and this was good enough for this experiment.
6. Fit the new 'Smoked' headlight corners. These are ridiculously expensive for what they are but I suppose that's just part of owning a Porsche
7. Stand back and be amazed at how awesome your Boxster now looks
