HIGHBOOST

I jsut removed my taillights in preperation of painting the amber lenses red. Now that I have the taillights out, do I have to take the individual lense out??

If so, what is the safest way to do so,

THanks,

Jared

944Ecology

No can do... They're glued in...

gb

HIGHBOOST

O man, so then how do you guys get around that huge black backing and paint the lenses?

bleucamaro

I'm just speculating here, but I think you might need a sharpened putty knife and cut them out. scrape the glue off the car then sand it down to metal. . . just a guess. . . or mask the taillights off.

edit: thought you were painting the car, not the lenses. . . still might have to cut them out. How would you replace them if one was broken.

IceShark

I think those lenses are sonic welded. You can cut them out but it is an awful lot of work to do that cleanly and then glue them back together.

If your original intention was to color the amber signal lens red, all you had to do was paint the outer face with a couple light coats of Testors transparent candy apple red. The paint stands up fine so no need to paint from the inside. Besides, I suspect you would still look fairly yellow without covering the outer yellow surface.

jean_noir

I havent' done it yet but heres a reply on how to remove the lenses
(uses of knives and heat)


I am trying to take off my taillights so I can paint the amber indicator lense red. I removed all 8 nuts ( i think there were 8), and I took off the cover that has the bulbs in it, disconnected the wiring......... But the taillights aren't budging, is there some special way to remove these things? I mean there shouldn't be.

I've had good luck heating the caulk with a hair dryer, slowly moving around the edges for 15 or so min did the trick and it pushed right out with fairly little force.

The stuff is actually a relation to butyl tape - which is used in older windshield replacements. Heating it with a hair dryer for a bit will help get them out. Don't pull TOO hard - the lights themselves can become fragile with age.

And don't even try removing the individual tail lenses to paint them. Mine shattered when I tried with an old pair.
__________________
I took a huge screwdriver, and pushed hard on each of the screw posts, and eventually worked them out. That black crap is NASTY to work with!!!
I'm the one that posted the question with a three yr old write-up from Matt O. Just take a screwdriver, cover it with a towel or soft rag, and start wedging it out from the sides. Make sure you have all 6 screws out from each set of lights. Worked like a charm for me!

Boricua944

no all you have to do is run tape around all the edges the with a razor blade cut real close to the moldings around the lenses. I did it vica versa when i was trying to paint the frame of the lenses black.