alright, i bought a spare taillight to practice on. I did like shenrie posted and put it in the oven to heat up the glue----this has to be the best way to do it!!!
I mean i never tried it with the heat gun, but i can just tell that this way is a lot better way to prevent melting, bending and cracking.
ok, now to my question. Here is a pic that shenrie took and posted:
is this what its supposed to look like? to me it looks funny—not as clean looking as it should.
also, it says in the teg tips to apply chrome tape, where exactly would this go? It seems to me that if you put chrome tape on this then the light wouldn’t be able to shine through.
anyone care to enlighten me?
I’m thinking that this weekend i’m gonna try to find some plexi glass or fluorescent light covers to cut and bend to put in the taillight to replace the piece with the lines on it—i don’t want the lines there, but it seems like there needs to be that piece of plastic there so you can’t see through.
It’s just because Shenrie’s lights are very yellow and there’s a hole in the lens. Also the lighting in the picture can affect how it looks.
I say forget the chrome tape ( like you said, i also don’t see how the light shines through it well) and try refinishing them a bit and see what happens.
redman1322: 175 deg for 20 min is what shenrie posted. I turned the temp up a bit, more like 190deg (but of course all ovens will be different).
I put it in there for 20 min or so, then pulled it out and started prying with a screwdriver (shea used a puddy knife i think). After a min or two of working with it the glue would cool down again. So i’d put it in the oven again to heat up. I had to put it in the oven probably 5 times or so till i had done enough prying and it was hot enough to come off totally.
like i said, i haven’t done it with the heat gun, but the oven method seems to me to be MUCH safer, in respect to damaging the lights.
integra2316: yeah, they said put reflective tape in there, but i’m not sure where they mean. the only part where it would be visible is right in front, covering the whitish lense that covers the bulbs–if you cover this then the light from the bulb won’t be able to shine through.
J-Spec: i realize that his lense is cracked and is also yellowing a bit, i simply posted it as a reference for everyone else so that i didn’t have to upload my own pics at the moment.
it doesn’t have anything to do with refinishing, because the clear outter lense is fine. Its the “whitish” plastic piece that sits right behind the clear part that looks funny to me.
for the oven method, what do you place the lights on to prevent them from melting on the metal racks?
i’m not sure about the reflective tape, but if you look at some of the pics of those that were successful, it looks really nice… i’m not sure if they put the tape in or not… you might wanna ask asian_buddah … he seems to be good at it…
i just put the taillight right on the oven rack. 175-200deg isn’t enough to melt the plastick, hell, its not really enough to make the plastic lense itself bendable—it just makes the glue warm enough to start pulling them apart.
yeah, don’t worry at all about melting it or about browning it. I’m pretty confident that you’d have more of a chance of melting or browning the lights with a heat gun.
oh, and does anyone have any close up pics of the tails installed? I"ve seen pics from a distance, but i’d like to see what they look like up close—cause i just don’t see how it looks good with that white thing in there.
redman, that pic is one shenrie took. i simply used it because it was handy to illustrate my point. and the reason they don’t look all that good is because they are busted and just for practice.
well, leifs pics are decent, but i need closer up.
it looks to me like the tails are different by a lot. Judging by his pics, shenries pics, and my taillight in front of me that only the 92-93’s look good cleared out due to the design.
anyone have pics of the pieces that come out of the 92-93’s when you clear them? or what the lense of the taillight looks like by itself (after its been pulled off the lights).
if the lights do turn out to be different, anyone want to trade 92-93 tails for my 90-91’s??
when/if i end up doing this completely i’m gonna do a better write up and take pics for the teg tips.
yeah, i did a bunch of searches for that too. I was hoping that i didn’t have to post this, and that i could just refer to that older post. But for the life of me i can’t seem to find it!!!
and i’m pretty sure it had most of the info/pics that i need.
well, i emailed asian buddha as well as leif to see what pics they have laying around.
Abut the chrome tape question, I think you’re supposed to put it in the back, where the light bulbs go. I tried to clear mine out and messed them up, but I did manage to get them all taken apart. Mine looked like the picture posted here too, and I put some tape in there and held them together and they looked better. Also, I have a set of clear taillights sitting in my garage, and they are all chrome on the inside (on the top, bottom, and back).
With 2 people, we got one lense apart in less than ten minutes. Having an extra person makes a HUGE difference.
The reason that light looks so bad is cause I bought that thrashed light to experment with. There is all kinds of dirt and crap inside the lense. Is isnt yellow at all.
I think the chrome tape is just placed inside the back of the lense, but I do agree, it does look a little funny. You can see the bulbs real well. Im gonna put a piece of deflector from the tasklight in my cubical so you cant see the bulbs directaly. I had one put together like that before, but I took it apart so many damn times that all the pieces just wore out. I liked the way it looked cause the design in the deflecter matched the jdm lights well. Ill try to get a pic of the stuff when I get home. That kinda stuff is available at home depot too, but thier stuff doestnt match the jdm lights asswell.
If your worried about the high temperature, its not really that high. Our tail lights survive when its 100 degrees outside, so i dont think 100 more degrees will make him melt or bend.
shea, have you ever cleared out 92-93 tails? Cause just by looking at the few pics i’ve seen it looks to me like adding the deflector from the tasklight isn’t needed for 92-93 tails.
i’m gonna go see what they have in the way of fluorescent light covers at home depot and such. But i’m thinking more and more that i’m just gonna try to find someone who wants 90-91 tails and will trade for their 92-93’s.
Even though I had a set of 91 tails, I didn’t bother with clearing them cuz i thought you had to pick out each red line individually…but now I know you take out one single piece. For the 92 light you take out just the amber piece. I left the smoked reverse reflector and the clear piece where the signal was…Hope this pic helps…lol
