polycarbonate_roof_and_headlamp_restoration_smart_fortwo_451¶

3 excerpts.

Excerpt¶

youtube.com/auto_knight/polycarbonate_roof_and_headlamp_restoration_smart_fortwo_451 · p. 1 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

in this video i'm going to be restoring the polycarbonate roof and also the headlamps on my smart451 [Music] now as with headlamps on many cars the polycarbonate roofs on these vehicles deteriorate over time and this is primarily due to sunlight which erodes away at the surface some vehicles are more effective than others i think it largely depends on whether the vehicle lives in a garage most of its time or just where it's stored and how much exposure it has to sunlight mine's pretty bad really foggy really misty you can't really see through it and it's a bit of a trial and error here because i don't know if this is going to work certainly going to give it a go if it does then all the better if it doesn't at least it will be well prepared for the wrapping which is is what will probably be the next step that's plan b to get the roof wrapped with something cool like carbon fiber or something so we'll see how this goes it's a bit of an experiment so i have a whole bunch of things here i have a polisher which is a draper it's about 70 quid i'm hoping that that's going to be effective in carrying out this job i've got some really fine 2 000 great wet and dry sandpaper here which should be fine enough to not damage the surface and scratch it this is a cutting compound and it's said to be effective for dealing with scratches and surface marks that can be created by 1400 grit wet and dry so that should be strong enough for the job to prepare the surface not so sure about this uh this i bought from halfords saw it i thought this might be something good to actually finish the job off i'm thinking this will be a lot um finer than this cutting compound here so let's get on with the job now as you will see the surface of this headlamp is pretty poor i mean i've seen worse sometimes they go completely opaque you can still actually see into the headlamp but i'm really hoping i can improve upon this the other side's pretty much the same and now we come to the roof uh and this is really bad now it is a problem on these cars it's a polycarbonate roof and effectively sunlight just damages it over time and the surface deteriorates like this you can scratch off this so i'm hoping that with the use of the polishing mop i should be able to cut right back through this now those that have the pure model smart don't have this roof arrangement they have a solid roof and they're not immune from problems too they have issues where they delaminate it's like a stippled surface with a clear layer and the clear layer actually peels away so they can get pretty scabby too and i'm not covering those particular style of roof in this video this is really about the polycarbonate roof that you should be able to see through from the inside of the vehicle it does unfortunately make these cars like a bit of a greenhouse they get very hot very quickly so it's great to have the air conditioning working which mine doesn't a bit of a sore point but i'll be dealing with that so first of all it's best to remove this little bonnet just to give extra room i'm actually going to undo this torx screw and take this bonnet completely away because i don't really want it just located in these little slots here because it's going to be a nuisance having it in the way here so this is just a t25 and once that's undone this whole panel can be removed and stored somewhere safe so i don't trip over it which is very common for me now this job has the potential to be quite messy and splatter cutting compound everywhere so to minimize the cleanup operation afterwards i'm just going to put this sheet in here this will clean up later and i can have this back on the bed by tea time it would be an absolute cow to clean splatterings of cutting compound from all inside this spay here i think it's an engine bay then there's no engine at the front so i've moistened the pad and i just put three small drops on here [Music]

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youtube.com/auto_knight/polycarbonate_roof_and_headlamp_restoration_smart_fortwo_451 · p. 2 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

i can immediately see that that's making a good job it's really important to keep this wet because you really don't want this to start burning the heat that's generated from this action can be quite uh extreme so you don't want to damage the surface with that heat i'm using a wet wipe i'm now just cleaning off this headlamp just to see what difference it's made and if there are any areas i've missed that is unbelievable that is so clear again i did not expect it to come out that good i can honestly say that that has way exceeded my expectations look at the clarity there when compared to the other side excellent now something tells me that this is going to be very hungry on power that was down to one light a minute ago one of three and i've only done one headlight and i've got the whole roof to go so i may have to do this in stages and recharge this little battery probably could get a spare but i've only just bought this so we'll see how things go so it's time to have a go at the other side i'm gonna fit this little handle that came with this tool just to see if it makes it any easier i'm slightly concerned that i'm blocking up the air vents with my hands and i'm holding this maybe that's why it's getting so hot so maybe this will help in supporting it and let's see what we can do it's quite a messy job so don't wear your best suit using this handle really helps to steady the tool so i can still feel it's getting bloody hot so here we are battery flat one and a half headlamps done this is going to take a while i sense i might be shopping for a spare battery so one can be on charge while i'm using the other and let's see how this one has turned out like to have done a bit more but the battery's gone so that's on charge when that has charged i'm gonna do a bit more to this one [Music] so okay so uh i've decided to go out and buy a new battery a spare battery so i can have one on charge while one's in use these are only 1.5 amp hours so i dashed down to tour station grabbed this spare it was 25 quid they did do a 4m power version which would be far better it's nearly uh three times more capacity um they didn't have it in stock and that was really annoying and needed to crack on today so i just bought this um they seem to take about an hour to charge but if they're only going to last 10 minutes 15 minutes it's gonna be very slow work doing this roof so i've finished these two headlamps now i just did another pass over them with uh some more cutting compound i'm very pleased with the result really clear and on the other side crystal clear in there let's hope i can get similar results on the roof which is in a worse state so it's all masked here i don't want to damage the tritium paint and mask the top of the windscreen too now let's see what we can achieve here everything is getting splattered including the gopro this really is a messy job [Music] so i'm now going to use this 2000 grit wet and dry see if i can actually get through this layer using this and then buffing it again might be the key to this looking good okay so i'm going a different route now i've decided i'm gonna sand this whole

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youtube.com/auto_knight/polycarbonate_roof_and_headlamp_restoration_smart_fortwo_451 · p. 3 · Applies to: 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, #1, ebike

area this whole corner that i've already done with the cloth polisher see if this which is then followed up by another buffing we'll give a better result okay so the whole roof has now been sanded with 2000 wet and dry sandpaper so i've managed to buff this sort of front corner here and the results are reasonable although i will need to go over it again again the buffer run out of battery power when i got to the back here so that's charging again that's been a theme throughout today really is constantly stopping and waiting for batteries to charge i certainly don't rate this draper buffer it's probably only any good if you're buffing a fuel tank on a bike or something but for a car it's really inadequate i wish i bought a mains powered one and you know what they say about a watched pot never boiling i just need that light to go green and then we can carry on [Music] okay so this roof has been buffed now about three or four times i've also polished these black side trims and also the little spoiler at the back here so i'm now going to wipe this off and we'll see what we're left with well what can i say that was hard work the job is done i've been out here all day i've been very hindered by the product by that draper polisher it really is rubbish and it's probably only good for really small jobs it lasts lucky if you get five minutes out of it how you could ever polish a car or anything like that with it is beyond me um i'm quite happy with the result i probably needed to do more to it and it's just i'm just losing the will with that device i need a mains powered one i definitely don't recommend the device at all let me show you the results and see what you think feel free to comment below so this is the roof now it's definitely a lot smoother it's definitely a lot blacker there are still a few marks in the surface here and there's just a little bit of the tide mark here around the edge it's definitely an improvement the headlights are fantastic and i'm very happy with those so all in all not a bad job i'd say it's average it's definitely improved it i can do better and i will another time but i will probably buy a different machine to do it with as is often the case it is a saturday evening i'm still out here filthy dirty really grimy need to jump in the shower and have cold beer please do subscribe to my channel and help it grow thank you very much for watching and goodbye you