Pang3t, what did you use tint, vinyl, or spray?

 

^^this

 

spray most cleanest and easiest way.
to remove it thatu dont like use thinner

 

Wow!!! they look real clean. +reps.
I guess I'm back to the spray...

Did you go with the Testor's candy apple red, or the Japanese brand? Which color/brand did you use?

 

Glass stain paint were u can get at like home depot

 

just a thought, but if you were using red vinyl and having trouble matching to the red lens color, you would just cover that part with vinyl as well. no mismatching red.

on a separate note, axis tails are cooler than j's . they're actually both cool, but the j's are so not worth twice the price of the axis. and you get a bunch of color options with axis.

 

IMO i would vinyl the red lens color as well.

 

not required by law to have white reverse lights? how do you get around that?

 

Isn't it also kinda dangerous?

I mean when people see bright white lights, they're supposed to assume the car is heading in that direction. So, now that they see a bright RED light, they're more likely going to assume the car is stopped/stopping.. and pull right up to the car in an effort to stop... instead of stopping much further back.

Smoked tails aren't as bad, because you can tell it's just a dimmer "white."

On a personal note... i'm more of a fan of the JDM Hybrid's clear tails.

 

true. very true.

on a personal note... i'll probably pull the trigger on the J's LED tails while the car is in storage

 

yeah exactly. then you don't have two different tints of red.

oh and about the reverse lights, i guess if you red them out then you're just banking on cops being too lazy to care about that. but i believe it is indeed required by law to have at least one reverse light that produces white light.

 

i guess so about the white reverse light. but its not gna be hard to take it out also my buddy Saint on fitfreak did same but kept the white reverse light.

 

Did you spray the outside of the tails, or open them up and do the inside?


I found a few far-east diy web pages, and they opened the tails and sprayed them from inside, using Vans lens spray paint.



Still cant decide between the tint/vinyl and the spray.

 

what's the diy for taking apart the tails? i have tried and didn't think it was really possible.

i would def recommend vinyl tint. it's easily removed if you ever change your mind and you don't have to worry about putting on a bunch of REALLY EVEN coats and wet sanding and buffing blah blah blah. vinyl is nice and shiny out of the box and looks very good once applied. it's worth taking the time to learn how to apply it nicely imo. of course that recommendation is based on not being able to open the tail light itself. if you could just paint them like the headlight housings then that would of course be the best route.

Oh and Pang3t, any higher res shots of those ge tails all redded out? i'm kinda diggin that look...

 

I would guess the baking technique like the headlights.
The DIY I was looking at yesterday was from a Thai site (or maybe Indonesia?), they didn't show opening up the tails, but they showed the finished product, and just like the ones Pang3t posted, they look really clean & completely color matched. (I knew I should've bookmarked ) I tried a search again, and couldn't find the same page. From the other links that did pop up, it seems that more are doing the the spray option. Besides the BMW owners, seen it on Toyota forums, and even motorcycle brake lights.

 

can't bake open the tails, i've tried. the glue is different from the head lights. are you sure the pics you saw were actually painted housings and not some form of tint/spray? or maybe aftermarket tails? the spray tint (vht niteshades, and i think other brands have similar products) does seem to more popular. i see it more out on the road. it's pretty easy, you just have to make sure you're good with a spray can. and you have to do multiple layers, and it's kinda tricky to get the level of dark you want. and to get them really glassy you have to wet sand before you paint, before clear coat, and before you buff. they can come out nice it's just a long process. look it up on youtube, there are some good vids on there showing the step by step process. when you spray too it's easy to just mask off the reverse light so you still have that portion clear in the end and you can see what's behind you when you back up.

 

The tails were definetely opened but it wasn't a Fit. Same post said it's better to spray paint the inside to protect from the elements. I've been searching for it all day, if I'm not mistaken it came up under -- vans red lens transparent translucent spray paint -- some combination of those search words.

Spraying doesn't scare me, I have plenty of experience with spray finishing. I basically want the best most durable finish, with the best color matching possible.

btw I'm not going to red out the whole tails, I'm gonna do something very similiar to the S-class/Noblesse style, not on the USDM tails either.

 

All red looks awesome! Now I have something new to do...

 

You have to dremel around the entire edge of the tail light if you want to open them, there's no other way to do it.

 

OH I thought it was a Fit you were talking about. Yeah no way to open our tail lights unless you wanna bust out a dremel and spend some serious time on them. As for durability I really don't think there's a huge difference between paint and vinyl, I mean as far as tail lights are concerned. You don't have to really worry about them getting beat up like you would head lights. Paint can chip, vinyl can rip, but for tail lights I think you'd be safe either way. And as for color options you definitely have more with vinyl. The spray tint only comes in black and red as far as I know.

I'd like to see what you come up with though, regardless of what route you go. Be really cool to see some diy benz/noblesse style tails. Post 'em up!!