Thread: clearing/painting tails 101

we have all seen our fair share of tinted and painted tails, all of which are on the outside of the original lense. now, here is another way to mod your tails: clearing and painting the INSIDES of the tails. many people have been turned off from doing this because of the effort it takes and how likely it is to destroy the tails in the process. tail lights are not like headlights where you can bake the lenses off. they are plastic welded together and the only way to do anything to the insides is to cut them apart.


tools for the job:

- dremel or die grinder with cutoff bit
- hammer and a screwdriver
- sealant of your choice, i will probably use a nice plastic epoxy

dont forget your safety goggles, you're going to get plastic flung in your face the whole time:



now, here is what the tails are like stock:




let's begin:



cut around the outer edge of the tail on the rear and follow the bottom across on the area just above the reflector.

NOTE: THIS IS A WRITE UP BASED ON ME PAINTING THE INSIDES OF THE TAILS, NOT JUST CLEARING THEM. IF YOU ARE CLEARING THEM YOU DO NOT NEED TO CUT THE ENTIRE BACK OFF OF THE TAILS. YOU WILL ONLY HAVE TO CUT JUST THE MAIN BULB PORTION AND THEN FOLLOW THE REST OF THE DIRECTIONS AFTER. CUT ONLY THIS PORTION:



because i am painting the insides, i am cutting the whole back off of the tail so that i can paint them.

here is the tail after being cut apart:





HINT: THE DREMEL IS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO USE ON THE BOTTOM WHERE THE TWO MOUNTING POINTS ARE FOR SCREWING THEM INTO THE CAR. I USED A SMALL HANDHELD SAW FOR THESE TWO SPOTS. IT TAKES A LITTLE BIT OF EFFORT, BUT IT'S ABOUT THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN DO IT.

notice how the reflector is still stuck in there? time to take it out. how do you do this? break the reflector. i used these items to accomplish this:



that's right. a hammer and a screwdriver. BE CAREFUL. if you hit it too hard and go straight through the reflector you WILL crack the outer lense and it will leak and look crappy.



now, if you are just looking for cleared tails the reassembly part starts here. note that the clear reflector that goes over the reverse light is plastic welded to the red reflector that covers the whole tail. you can rip it off easily enough, but you'll probably have to clean up a few red pieces that come along with it. if you would like to reuse this and keep the reflector over the reverse light then you'll have to glue it to the rear section of the tail that we previously cut off. you have to do this because it no longer has a place to mount.

from here if you arent painting, just clearing, then you can start putting the tails back together. you use your sealant of choice (an epoxy in my case) and fill in the void of what we had previously cut out. REMEMBER THE NOTE I PUT AT THE BEGINNING? IF YOURE JUST CLEARING YOU HAVE A SMALLER SECTION TO REMOUNT BACK ON THE TAIL SO YOU HAVE IT A LITTLE EASIER. MAKE SURE YOU USE A SEALANT THAT WONT STAND OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB WHEN LOOKING THROUGH THE LENSE (COLORS).

here is what a cleared set of tails looks like:





here is the tail with the reverse reflector mounted in it:




obviously before you seal them back up take a little time and trim some of the flashing that cutting them produced. this will make it easier to seal them back up and so that there arent as many noticeable places where it looks like you ****ed up. take your time and make sure you dont just run at this all willy nilly. you will destroy a set of tails if you are not careful.

soon to come, next post, painted tails.




THE SECOND ONE I CUT WAS MUCH, MUCH BETTER. CHECK OUT THESE PICTURES FOR BETTER LINES FOR CUTTING:

well, painting has been completed (almost).

i bought a can of etching primer. if you do not use an etching primer then you will have to do a bunch of sanding and prep work on the insides of the tails because of the 'chrome' finish on them. in other words, i took the lazy way out.

here are the tails primed:



notice the back up reflectors in there? let me explain what im doing.

because they back up reflectors are plastic welded to the red reflector in the light, it is 100% that you will break off some of the red lens on it. now, instead of taking 150 years scraping at them and getting the red off and still leaving a bunch of marks behind showing that you touched them i did the best i could to scrap everything i could off, masked the lenses off and painted the outer edge of them the same color as the inside of the tails. this way you can hide where you had to do some work to them, and still use them without them being noticeable from the outside. i am still unsure if i will use them. pictures of the lenses masked, primed and painted:



now it is time for a little black (OR YOUR COLOR OF CHOICE! I THINK A COLOR MATCHED SET TO THE CAR WOULD BE AWESOME ON THE RIGHT COLORS!!):






note that this is matte black, but i was taking pictures while the paint was drying. here is another thing to take note of. i will be doing this, but i ran out of masking tape so i will have to do it at another time.

look at the insides of the lenses themselves. you can still see silver where we cut from before. now, this wont be super noticeable unless you look for it, but because i dont want these lights to be a crap set i want to do something about that. what i am going to do before i seal these is that i will mask off the inside of the light, then paint the outer edges so you cant tell where we had previously cut the light and it still being silver. this is what im talking about painting:



here is me painting the insides of the lenses to get rid of that silver border:




here it is with all the tape off, notice no more silver left to stand out and look ugly?




also, decided to stick with the reverse reflectors on these ones, i am using this adhesive/sealant hoping that it works well:






well, here is what you've all been waiting for, completed pictures:







honestly, i think the reflector needs a little tint and the outside of these lenses need a little attention. however, enjoy! hopefully i can convince someone to put them on their car and take pictures...

looks good, so what is getting painted?

it looks sweet!!!!!!

Originally Posted by redlinepontiac

hey i donated those

you sure did, sending you a pm to see how you want them painted...color matched?

Originally Posted by 01GTP

looks good, so what is getting painted?

the silver part of the tail where the reflector previously covered. at first i was thinking black. might be something else.

4th image you need to fix your code

Going to use a red film over the bulbs then?

id keep them clear and just put red led bulbs

if they were my tails i would probably be replacing with a spider LED bulb that is already red. when i did this on my old car i used a red bulb and it ended up looking more pink than red and i didnt like it. that is when i went ahead and tinted my old set that were previously cleared.

Originally Posted by BoostnBlackGTP

id keep them clear and just put red led bulbs

That's the point, there is already write-ups and stuff on clearing them, he's doing this specifically to paint the insides, something I don't believe we've seen on the internet as of yet.

actually the old write up on clubgp has all broken image links so it's not even helpful anymore.

I've seen a write-up elsewhere that had all the images intact, can't remember where though.

is it surprising that the second side i cut up looks 100% better than the first? hm.

also, these things take a good amount of painting unless you want to prep for a few days. got one more coat of black on them then ill snap some completion pictures and be done.

pictures of the 'assembled' lights are up.

wish i could see them on my car

idk if i like the black... but i love the silver look with them. i gotta see em on a car first. But good work man

well, anyone that wants to put these on a car to see what they look like then that's cool by me. i hope that the guy who gave them to me will put them on his car at least to check them out and snap a few pictures.

however, i can already tell you that if you do this youre going to need to do something different with the bulbs to make sure the brake light is red and what not.