Home Repairs and Restoring The Headlight Lenses

The headlight lenses on the home were yellowed due to UV and exposure over the past nine years. Not only were they dull they just didn’t seem to give us the quality of light for night time driving. I first thought I would just replace them until I found out that each lens assembly would run me about $280.00 each. I have heard and read about the headlight lens restorer kits you could buy but just never had the faith it would clean and restore the lens. When in Wal-Mart the other day I found this kit and it’s price was under $10 so I said it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.

The kit includes 3 lens restoration pads, lens clarifying compound, spray lubricant and a lens sealing wipe. After reading the instructions I started restoring the passenger side headlight lens. The four steps took about twenty minutes. Afterwards I could see quite a bit of difference and proceeded to do the drivers side. Overall it took less than an hour and they look better. They weren’t crystal clear as the originals would look but they certainly looked a lot better. How much improvement for night driving we will find out the next time we do nighttime driving.

I took before and after photos but for some reason the before didn’t turn out at all. Here is the after. Take my word they look a lot better even though there is still a light yellow tint which I believe may be on the inside of the lenses.

As to the home maintenance we needed to replace all of our fluorescent lamps in the ceiling and replace the lighting fixture in the bed room as this one didn't work any more (we thought). When at the RV dealer in Longview where I purchased six pairs of 15watt fluorescent tubes I checked on the price of the new fixture. It was $69+ and I decided right then we would go to plan B. Plan B was to swap one of the units up front that we hardly never used with the bedroom unit.

While I was in the process of undoing the mounting screws up front Sandy was in the bedroom removing its mounting screws. All of a sudden Sandy asked “what is this switch for on the side of the light fixture”. I replied that it was an on-off switch. Then I heard…. “stop disconnecting your fixture this one now works”. What apparently had happened this switch was turned off accidently and the wall switch we use for turning the unit on-off did not respond. So, we assumed the transformer  was bad. What is it about that word assume???????

Just think I could have dropped nearly $70. Lesson learned don’t assume and check everything before replacing it..

Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.