Tinted Rear Lenses - Not so Chav!

[Conan_the_Librarian]

I'll let you decide. Thanks to those lovely chaps at A8Parts (they are great people you know) I have a scrap rear light lens out of the skip. You'll all recognise this:



Using the penlight,





Using some tinting spray I thought I would try to recreate the American look.
The tin suggests a coat is 2 passes, one horizontal followed by one verticle so thats what I mean by a coat. I clean the lens using good old brake cleaner and after removing the seals





Which are all one piece glued lightly on the thin outside ring and spot glued on the larger inside ring I layed the first coat.

Hardly able to tell the difference and it didn't show in the photos. Just shinyer.

Then onto a second coat after 5 min wait,



Using my penlight again,





Now I think this is probably enough. But I wouldn't know unless I did a third coat.





Now I'm not to sure. By now I had lost the daylight and was working on my Random Misfire problem so unable to do a back to back comparison with my tail lights. Will do it tomorrow and post some pictures.

However, impresssions are favorable to me it looks just like this one from Paul W in the States,


and the light is still coming through amber. One thing I noticed is that I will need to polish the lenses first to remove any micro marring and swirls as basically this is a lacquer with a red tint so it emphasises any imperfections. But you do have to look close and if I did it without polishing first I know that Ska would look close!
More to follow.

[Architex_mA8tey]

I like the look after the second coat but I guess until youve got it out in the daylight on the car it would be harder to tell for sure. Great experiment Mike and thanks to A8 Parts for the donation

[Conan_the_Librarian]

Here we go! What do we think. I like it I must say.

[Oli18]

That looks ace mate! ... I reckon you may even sway me to do this one rather than buy the US versions

[Ska]

Stick it on the car Mike then give us a wider angle shot
I think the trick is to make it match the boot lid lights so 2 coats may be enough?

[Mkoneman]

nice little touch, might be worth dusting a bit of paint on to the inner lights so they match nicely

[Conan_the_Librarian]

Here is the wide angle shot:


And some video of the Indicators and brakes

HERE and HERE

[PsYcHe]

Looks good...

[Architex_mA8tey]

Looks great Mike
I think the brake/tail lights look unaffected and the indicators actually look a better colour now. top notch experiment . . . now where do I sign to get mine and how much? hehe

[Ska]

Looking good there Mike, but I do agree with Mkoneman in that the boot lid lights need to be given a couple of coats to match. My only other concern is that when I did this to my old granada, police took interest to see if the reflectors worked properly; they even went as far as flashing thier head lights on them to see if they reflected! Not to mention MOT stations.