How-To: Tint your turn Signals (or Tail Lights)

Go From This:


To This:


Remove your Bumper Lights

1. Remove the 3 retaining screws from the fender well.

2. Reach inside the fender well, and depress the metal clip on the back of the turn signal housing. (When I say Depress, I mean push down on, not tell the turn signal your life story.)

3. While holding this clip in, use your other hand to pull/wiggle the housing out of the bumper. This might take some force, since it's locked in there pretty well. Also, remember to be pulling on the middle/back end of the housing, not near the front end.

4. Once you free the rear end/sides of the signal, you should be able to swing (pull) out the front end and disconnect the housing/remove the bulb/wiring.

Clean Your Parts (car parts, not private parts)
5. Now give your turn signals a nice scrubbing with some Dawn dishsoap. This helps remove wax, bug guts, and other oils from the surface.

6. Once they are dry. sand them light-medium with the 400 grit paper. This will also help to get rid of the bumpy lense coding on the bottom.

7. Now sand well with the 800 grit paper. The better/smoother you sand it, the better it will come out.

8. Wash the lenses again with soap to remove any dust particles and fingerprint oil. From here out out, either be careful, or use a rubber
(or latex) glove.

9. Use masking tape to cover any part of the housing that you don't want to paint. Although this step might not matter, since people won't see the backside of the lense.

Spray Day
10. Once they are nice and dry, break out the VHT paint in a well ventilated area! This stuff smells worse than normal paint and will kick you right in the brain, so try not to breathe too much of it in. Be sure to spray in a straight line and keep the can about a foot away from the lense. This stuff goops easily, and if you F it up, you gotta let it dry, sand it all down, and start over! Apply light coats, so that you can get the look that you want. Plus this stuff will darken a little as it dries, so give it about 15 minutes between coats.

11. Once you get it to the desired darkness level, You should let it cure for a few hours, and then check the surface. If you need to, use a 1000-2000 grit paper to LIGHTLY remove "orangepeel" or dust. Be sure to use a nice (microfiber) rag to remove any dust before continuing.

13. Now you can add 2-3 coats of clear coat to the lense. Do this as per the directions, and let it cure, before giving it a light sanding with 2000 grit paper (if needed).

PS..Don't forget the Beer

15. Remove any Masking tape, and clean the lenses Just wash them off.

16. Add a coat or 2 of wax to shine them up nice and glossy

17. Reinstall by reversing the removal instructions. Don't forget to plug everything in.

18. Step back, revel in your craftsmanship, and post up some pics!

tony

Pics? Before/after?

Dimitrios said:

Pics? Before/after?

Click to expand...

Good point... (looks for thic thread is worthless w/o pics gif)

Good point, I'll try to add a few more!

nice how to, i'll give you props for it for sure, and yeah pics of each step are always nice to have... this is relatively strait forward though

Demoniam said:

Good point, I'll try to add a few more!

Click to expand...

pictures of women with the car wouldn't hurt either jp

I just did this mod and there is an amazing appearance difference. I bought the VHT tint spray on ebay(its illegal and most places don't sell it) and did this after work, let it dry over night, and installed them the next morning before I went to work. Here are some pics of mine:





great job on the thread domaniam. you could have bullshitted your way through explaining this mod but you took the time to go into detail even though its an easy mod. So props to ya.

red?

Demoniam, my favorite part about yours is that it blends with the black exterior (looks good on the yellow too) - I have a classic red p5. Do you know if I can get tint paint in red, and will it still show as amber (since there's bound to be a law or something, eh?)?

And might there be a way to take the light apart and paint the inside of the lens? May be more trouble, but I'd be worried about getting the surface right with all that sanding on the outside.

admiraljuice said:

Demoniam, my favorite part about yours is that it blends with the black exterior (looks good on the yellow too) - I have a classic red p5. Do you know if I can get tint paint in red, and will it still show as amber (since there's bound to be a law or something, eh?)?

And might there be a way to take the light apart and paint the inside of the lens? May be more trouble, but I'd be worried about getting the surface right with all that sanding on the outside.

Click to expand...

Hey for a red tint you could just use some red spray paint. I would say don't do more than two coats with a regular spray paint. It might shine a little orange when the lights are on but that would be ok because they would look great when there not on. The black tint looks great on the red by the way. And about taking the light apart, I never figured out how to when I took mine out. But I wouldn't worry about anything. Even if another part of the housing gets painted it won't show up since the only part that shows when installed is the lense. Good luck, and happy modding!

Does the clear help? Like, is it shiny afterward? Alot of tails and shi that I've seen are a really hazy flat looking finish...

Admiral, if you're worried about it, buy some clear corners, sand and paint those, then install some silverstar amber bulbs or amber wide angle LEDs.

I've seen people do them in red and other colors, VHT makes the paint, but I don't know if they make the transparent stuff. Any body shop could mix some up for you, it's basically thinned out paint...

777-- IDK about taking them apart, they may melt in the oven, but I can't say 100%...

Maxx--VHT does dry a little flat. The clear really helps, but adding the wax to it really makes it shine!

subin

i just did this... but mine look kinda foggy.. i bought mequirs car wax to do my car... can i use that on the tail lights? I even baught the powerball..haha pics soon.

Here are pics of my tails after using niteshades. Very light coats i didn't want the really really dark look. In all honesty if you didn't know I used niteshades on them you prolly would not even notice that they were darker (even p5 owners). Light clear coats on them too but prolly could use a heavier coat to bring out more shine.

Before:



After:

I don't know anything about paint but do they have a clear coat that IS flat and not glossy? My car is going the Midnightblue/flat black theme. So I want mine to be flat. I don't want to do this then have to start over again because the clear coat I picked was glossy.

think i should try to wax or using rubbing compound to bring out the shine or leave it flat. i did use clear coat and this is how it came out..

try cleaning it and clearing it again but use heavier coats

does anyone know if doing this to ur corners is illegal,? cause my friend bought this window cling tint stuff to try on his tails (as a temporary thing) and i put some on my amber gay corners and it actually looks ok, but it doesnt lay right since its rounded, but i want to kno if its illegal in NY, cause i do not want to give a cop a reason to pull me over, i really want to do the tinting spray so someone let me know. ASAP thanks haha

search your local law enforcement page. thats what i did for my tinted tails.. but i do beleive that it is technically illegal.. are you talking about the turn signals? take a pic lets see what your talking about

its the amber corner turn signals in the front of the car. right next to the headlight. im gunna try the police page idk.