Well I was cleaning a set of 90-91 tails last night and found a nice way to get rid of the pink lines inside them without taking the lights apart. One of the lights i had it was sitting around outside at my friends body shop and had some dirt in it. The other (right side) came off of my car (my left one was broken when I got rear ended). So i grabbed the extra one they had and was going to clean it up to sell the set. Since I got some 92-93 tails for my car that I traded my friend for my 90-91 jdm tails.
Well anyways, back to the discovery. I took the bulbs/wiring off of the light. Took it over to the sink and turned the hot water one and put hot water in there to wash out the dirt. I decided to spray some Castrol Super Clean inside to break loose the dirt better. Poured a little more hot water in there with it, and shook it around. Poured it out, and repeated. Well after I did that a few times and then looked at the front of the light to see if all the dirt was out, I noticed the pink lines were now white. There was still some pink on them in some areas, so i put in more super clean and hot water, mixed it around and all the pink was gone from the lines. Now they were just left white. So then I kept flushing the lights out with hot water to remove any super clean still in them.
I only did this to one light so far. I then wet sanded the lense down with 400 grit to remove the writing on it around the reflector part. Tonight I am going to finish the sanding with 600, 1000, 1500, and then 2000 so it is ready to polish out with a buffer or by hand. Then I’m gonna work on the other light.
Also, i am not sure what effect the super clean will have on how well the light is sealed. And if it will beak down that or not. But after it’s sanded/polished I am going to lay a bead of clear silicone around the lense to make sure it is sealed up real good.
I’d be interested in seeing a comparison with your “bleached” lense vs. Neil’s sanded ones. I’d also pick up a set of 90-91’s if it that easy to clear them out.
ok, well I haven’t sanded down the other lense yet. So I will clean the lines on that one and then after the inside dries out from the water/cleaner I’ll get a pic of it before I start sanding on it.
Sanding down the lines involves taking apart the tail lights, and taking that section out that has the lines on it, and sand them down, then put everything back together.
Thats what I thought, I was just confused about you saying you were sanding them down. So you are basically ‘bleaching’ them, then taking them apart to sand?
Im basically trying to avoid the whole taking them apart if I can.
ok here are the pics. I just used the super clean to remove the pink/black that is on the lines. whats left is white and the super clean won’t take that off. I am not taking them apart to sand them. The sanding that I am going to do is to the outside of the lense to remove the raised text around the reflector part, and just to remove any scratches and stuff, and give the lense a nice new smooth clean finish once it’s buffed out. Basically removing the lines with super clean is an alternative to taking the lights apart to sand them down to white. Unless you want them black.
There is still some moisture inside that hasn’t dried out yet, since it was just last night when i cleaned them out.
this is great… the other night i started to do my 93’s. i removed the amber stripe and tinted the clear stripe to match the little square piece. i finished the first one and it looked awsome. BUT for my second one i forgot about it in the oven to re-seal it, and went to take a crap… long story short, now i have a nice piece of melted plastic. so i went out to find a replacement without knowing the 90-91 were different. came back and found out they look completeley different. so i went back to find the right one and no luck. so i got the other 90-91 piece. then i came back and one is faded and the other one is still pretty pink. now i can match them 'cause they look pretty silly… i’m gonna do this right now…
Wow that looks awesome!! What exactly is this “Super Clean”? Where can you buy it? Also, is there anything similar to it that can be more easily found? That would look great on my DB2!
