That looks friggin great! Super pic!

 

Wish the pics were better. I hand polished the tail lights BEFORE
i painted them. I only used one coat of VHT then clear. They are
very glossy and the lights show up great in the day time.

P.S. these lights already appeared tinted from the factory!

 

Polish them before... got it.
My lights are also tinted from factory, but like I said they are looking a bit faded. I want them glossy tinted. I'll give 1 coat of VHT and clear a shot once bodywork commences.
Thanks!
If you can get a close up pic, that'd be cool.

 

what buyer did you buy these from?

 

VHT Nightshade'd. Wipe tail light down with alcohol wipe, spray. let dry. Spray real clear coat, no rattle can, and be done. No polish or sanding or any of that.





Sorry for crappy quality. These were taken with my phone.

 

Looks good. So the real clear, versus rattle can clear seems to have made the difference!

 

i have a neon green ill give it a go sooner or later

 

...

 

Tried my hand with VHT Red and Niteshade. I am going to grab another set of tails and do just an amber delete/clearcoat on that set and change between this set I finished and that one based on my mood =P

Stock:


Taped off the grids to keep them black when applying VHT Red:


VHT Red amber delete results (no clearcoat on this, the next set will be like this with clear):


VHT Red, 2 coats VHT Niteshade (3 on reverse lights), and 4 coats of clear drying:


Finished product after 2000 grit wetsanding, Meguire's PlastX, and Meguire's Gold Class paste wax:


They came out a little darker than I wanted, but in the daylight you can easily see the amber delete and the colors in the tailight. That last picture makes them look really black. I would've liked 1 coat of Niteshade, but 1 coat does not cover enough - it speckles pretty badly. Overall though, I'm pleased

 

so doing this eventually.

 

I had the body shop paint mine with some over reduced black. What do you think?

Chris

 

I like them. I really hate the amber on my taillights that is my main goal to eliminate the amber then i'll try and do a coat or two of nightshades and see how it looks

 

make em red first and see how you like it?

 

Oh yeah deffiantely will do the red first and see how I like them. That may be enough. The blacked out taillights would match my car but I dont like dealing with the cops on stuff like that

 

The last set I did with VHT. I have a gun now, so it's probably going to be my last set rattlecanning.. but the end result isn't bad once you get the hang of it.






I did a complete writeup on exactly how to do this on one of the Thunderbird forums somewhere. I can dig it up if any of you need to look at it for step-by-step directions.

 

Thanks

Chris

 

No Tint


Tint...

 

 

wanna go darker but will different style tails..

 

I tinted mine with Niteshade. I removed the lens from the housing in sprayed them from the inside. They have been done for about ten years now. Easy maintenance, I just wax the lens each time I wax the car.

 

Had sometime this weekend and got some little projects out of the way... VHT + Clear


Rainy outside so sorry its dark

 

VHT Nightshade

 

VHT always looks dull. Gotta clear them. Having a shop do it is night and day differance. Mirror finish. I've vht'd a few and I always remove it.

 

Got any pics? I would love to see them done this way

 

Updated in reply #129

 

If you mean pics of when I had them apart and sprayed them, sorry I don't. But now that you bring it up, it probably would have been a good idea to!

 

nice ****....

 

I got covers, because I don't like them being permanent but the covers look flush and stock and really nice.Used VHT on my truck though, 4 coats and I cn see them perfectly

 

The topic does say tinted, so that doesn't necessarily mean black. So I redded-out the amber sections.

First experimenting with a damaged set of Formula taillights, I tried "smoking" the lenses and then blacking them out, and I didn't like how either looked.

So with a good set of taillights and Nite Shades Red, I "redded" and clearcoated only the amber sections(leaving the rest of the lenses as natural plastic), and I worked only on the outside of the lenses. They came out transparent, smooth, glossy and very natural-looking.

Then with a simple wiring mod to the base 'bird taillight harness, allowing you to change the turn signals into turn/tail lights(as outlined in the linked thread), then moving them up to the red sections, these taillights can be made to work similarly to TA taillights. It's an alternative to swapping to TA taillights.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/auto...ula-trans.html

And for the record, redding-out the amber lense on the inside doesn't work(unless you're blacking-out the entire lense); I opened-up a damaged taillight and tried this. The amber lense is thick, so from the outside it still looks very amber.

 

LAFireboyd - thinking about doing what you did, then a light coat of nightshade/clear coat and getting the SEQ LED taillight for the T/A. The problem with the SEQ LED taillight for the Formula is, that Amber lense does nothing.

 

Lots of people do it, few do it right.

I am not saying I do it right per say but its better than slapping the rattle can VHT on some non prepped. Not knocking VHT nightshades, its a good product and I have used it. There are better ways though.

Wet sand the lights w 800 grit. Clean with wax/grease remover. Apply adhesion promoter. I use sikkens clear/ jet black mixed to a certain ratio. Even coat to desired darkness. One heavy coat of sikkens clear over top. I use my sharpe detail gun 1.0mm tip. You can use other brands of course but this is what I use.

 

I used VHT. sorry for little darker image. but can see the lenses are blacked out with the reverse cleared out.

 

I happen to think that looks good. I like it. Different.

~~~
Mine aren't blacked...but are tinted. Thinking about going a shade darker...

 

thanks. Try to be alittle different. They are glossy too cause I wet sanded them when I was finished and cleared them.
(side note.. what springs are on you car I like the stance?) (nevermind seen your sig. lol.) intrax

 

Yeah, lol, intrax, they don't make them anymore so if you ever see them buy them
They are a true 2in drop. They drive nice, not horribly stiff, the few corvettes Ive driven where worse on the road bounce.

I paired them with the kybgr2 shocks and I love it! Car handles like its half its size.

 

very nice.. anything to compare to those..
Sry to op not trying to thread jack.

 

Dropzones...Prob a worse ride but the same drop.

 

what are you guys using for bulbs the factory lighting isn't good enough in direct sunlight.

 

I want to spray mine but when i dId my bumper lenses with VHT, my newer lamp came out perfect and my older one was cracked and spider webbing..anyone ever get this?

 

When i did mine im not sure witch one i used cuz i have them both the rust-oleum and the vht one of them faded away in like 4 months and im pretty sure it was the rust-oleum one cuz i did my parking lights,side markers and my foglights and they look darker then my taillights when i did them

 

I have had the webbing cracks in the front turn lamps, I sanded them out completely then went with lighter and lighter sand paper. Once that was done then I blacked them out with great success.

 

What grits did you use?

Even then im afraid of doing it on my tails. I did them
On my brand new Tahoe tail lights with perfect success. I dont want to be sanding and sanding and sanding my tails

 

um.. If I remember correctly I used like 1000 grit, then worked way up to wet sanding with like 3000. IIRC

 

Cant wait to do this to my 87 ta hopefully it will hide the delamination of grid!

 

2 coats of tint on the amber lenses only... The full black out didn't flow well with my car.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53106660@N03/7292445268/

 

covers and tint

 

looks great fredbear, are you going to tint the brake light?

 

yeah when I do the front markers...they always bug me plus there a l bit cloudy anyway

 

when you use window tint it fades then evetually peels

 

I think they look best when tinted/sanded/polished. Dull tail lights really kill the backend of the car.