What a difference a day makes!

These are the original overhead lights.  They are aluminum and I had seen examples of them stripped before on the forums.

They looked very cool when shiny,  so I got out the trusty Citrastrip and painted them with a thick layer and left them overnight.

 Some of the paint came up pretty quickly but Airstream must have treated the bottom edge with something because there was a 2" strip all the way around (inside and out) that the Citrastrip didn't budge.  Even after a second coat!  Tougher than a woodpeckers beak!  


I decided to ramp it up and use the nasty aircraft stripper.

 It worked better but I still had to take a green 3m scrubbing pad to it to get it all off.  I wasn't too worried about scratching the aluminum because I was planning on polishing the light  anyway.  







This little guy came out to see what I was doing!  He lives under the front step and likes to sun himself on the top step.  People who leave our house often do it screaming!!

A little work on the polisher with a grey bar and voila! Not too shabby!  

 Next up were the plastic light covers.  Mine were horribly yellowed and stained (from smoking?) Here's what I started with, yech!

 I had read on the Internet about a homemade solution called RetrObright that was supposed to brighten up yellowed plastic electronics.  If you want read more about it here:  http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/Retr0Bright+Gel


The recipe calls for :
1 pint (500ml) Hydrogen Peroxide, 10 to 15% strength (40 vol)
2 heaped tablespoonfuls of Xanthan Gum
1 level teaspoonful of Glycerine 
1/4 teaspoonful of "Oxy" laundry booster

 Basically you pre-dissolve the oxy in hot water, mix it all into a gel and paint it on and let it sit in the sun or under a UV lamp. See the website for more detailed instructions-  the pictures make it look like magic!

Here were my ingredients.. I left out the Oxiclean, oops  lol .....and even I didn't feel the need to show you boiling water!

The glycerine I got at a drug store, the peroxide at a Sallys Beauty Supply and the Xanthan gum from a health foods store.   Probably cost me $20 in gas running all over town!   And I had to go to the Beauty supply twice cause nowhere on the label does it say what percentage of peroxide it was.  Grr ...by the way you want the 40 VOLUME!

  I did one light cover at a time cause I wanted to show the improvement.  So I mixed up a half recipe but used 1/4 tsp of oxi instead of 1/8 tsp



Here's it painted on:

It says you have to wait at least a day and I did.  To crushing results.... nada , zip, zilch... kinda like Mitt Romney's support among black voters!

 The hard part was that it's supposed to stay wet... tough to keep something in full sun and wet!  I thought the plastic bag would help but nope!  Your supposed to see bubbling... what little bubbling I saw, even a guppy wouldn't have been proud of!


You can use a UV light but I didn't have one....

I'm a rebel.  That's what I am... Adhering to a recipe makes me feel trapped. LOL 

So for round two,  I made a bath of just peroxide and the oxiclean.  I dissolved a teaspoon of the oxi in water added it to the remaining half pint of peroxide.  I plastic lined a cake pan and added the light cover.  At this point I didn't have high hopes but the bubbling started pretty fast and by the next morning I saw vast improvement!  Yippee!



 What a difference a day makes!   I was getting a little worried because the solution didn't seem to be bubbling as much and I wanted to get the other light cover in before things stopped working so I added a little more Oxi and some water because there wasn't enough solution to cover them both. 

It started bubbling away again after I added the oxi so I waited another day,  until they got as good as I thought they would ......and the end result speaks for itself!

They aren't truly white but I actually think they are back to what they started out as originally!

The lights have two sockets on the interior - one dedicated 12v and one 110v - my Overlander was wired at the fixtures for both.  Maybe I'll change out to LED bulbs or get rid of the sockets and use two LED pads.  I haven't decided yet and it might be awhile before these beauties get put back up.   I'm leaning toward the bulbs as it would appear more original but LED's are a fast changing world so I'm putting  finishing this the back burner for now.

What do you think?   My advice - skip the xantham gum and glycerine and  bleach away!