Shadowing Muh Tails, Horay!
 

Hey guys, I am working the night shift this week, so before work today I removed my tail lights. It wasn't near as frustrating as I imagined it being, just alot of things to remove. I brought my tail lights with me to work.

I masked off the clear part of tail lights so that it will not be tinted. Masking was the most tedious of the steps, I assumed this before hand. It was just hard for me to judge exactly where the line between the clear and red actually was. After a little while, I think I masked it well enough.

The second coat of nightshade is drying as we speak. Schrute's brake lights still shine through really well for two coats, so I think I'll go ahead and do 3 to get them nice and dark. (the can recommends not exceeding 3 coats)

As soon as the nightshade is how I want it, I'll remove the masking tape and apply 2 coats of "clear #1". Stay tuned for pictures.

Since I had the taillights off, I went ahead and replaced egg yolk bulbs with the chrome ones. :tup:

BTW: I'm really counting on these funes leaving the room in the next 10 1/2 hours.

Ok so I ended up doing 4 coats of nightshade, ha ha. I read the clear coat would lighten it up a bit, I may have gotten carried away. Oh well, "just do it" -Nike

Now just going to wait an hour and apply clear coat, funes are strong.....

Heres the finished result:

http://i50.tinypic.com/152nz3d.jpg

I was kind of upset with Clear coat at first, I used "clear #1" found it on amazon when I bought nightshade. I un-masked clear section of light and applied the clear coat. It made the clear part a little hazy/milky. I was confused as to why "CLEAR COAT" would do that. After failed attemps to remove the clear coat off clear section I just surrendered, and applied another coat. It really doesn't look bad, its just not as "shiny/flashy". I'm thinking maybe I got some kind of clear coat that isn't gloss? My lights don't feel really slick, they have a little bit of texture to them.

Anyways, I'm happy with them unless a different type of clear coat will give them a more glassy feel, I'll re-install them tomorrow and post final pics.

clear coat takes about 24hrs for the milky-ness to clear then your should prob use a gloss polish compound to shine em up

Looks good man. After letting them dry a couple days rub the clear with a little bit of rubbing compound and it will smooth them out a bit.

thanks for the feedback guys!

good stuff to know, I'll see how they look when I wake up later. :excited:

Looking forward to the finished results, they look great so far!

Im in for final pics also. Masking job looks to be good from the pics.

How did the lights look with 1 coat? I want a very slight tint to my tails, but I'm afraid 1 coat will look too uneven...

Dang, those lights are dark as fukk, I hope people will still be able to see you braking and not hit your car. Plus I hope a cop doesn't pull you over. I plan on doing the same thing but with tint, I'll have pics up this tuesday.

Yeah, I'd be pretty afraid about driving at night along with braking in general. They do look cool though. I only had a slight tint done to mine, and I'm happy with it, think it goes well with PG.

Ok so I ended up using some very fine steel wool and very lightly brushing across the lights. It really helped smooth them out. I then applyed two coats of a gloss clear coat. The appearance is alot more shiny now, and I'm happy with the result. here are two pictures of them on the car. Keep in mine on the first picture the clear section isn't deformed, it's just an illusion from the sunlight on picture. Also My car is really dirty, I have no shade/carport/garage at my parents.

http://i47.tinypic.com/345k1gy.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/a3cc50.jpg


They are pretty dark, I did 4 coats of nightshade. I wanted them to really blend with my body color and not just be a tinted red color. Keep in mind they aren't quite as black as they appear in pictures, but they are pretty black especially from a distance. I checked the running lights when i reinstalled them and I could see them quite well even in broad daylight. I didn't have a chance to check brightness of brake lights because I was alone at time.

Sorry I am doing this day by day with minimal free time before work. I will post pictures soon of the running light and brake light brightness (4 coats) so you guys thinking about doing it will have a good idea of how dark you want to go.

To the question about 1 coat: It is noticably tinted, but still quite red. you would probably lean towards adding another coat once you saw it, but it really depends on how you want it to look. Check out Member "schrute"'s journal he has a picture of what one coat applyed looks like.

Thanks for the info!

I think the 4coat blends well with a black car :tup: Lookin good

I'm debating about the 3rd brake light on top.

I could go have the dealer remove it, drive home, paint it, go back to dealer or........

I could just mask a large area around it and paint it while it's still on my car. I know that is kind of half-***, but Its not a large area to cover. Also, it would be way easier on me, and at the same time I think it would probably turn out just as good. What do you guys think?

I vote yes on the 3rd brake light, especially on a black car. It will flow better and will be pretty much hidden

As far as the method goes, I'll let you decide :icon17:

Oh yeah, I'm def going to paint it. :tup: I'll inspect it when I get home and see what I think about painting it while on car. I may do it tomorrow.

Here is a picture of the running lights on (brake not applyed)

http://i45.tinypic.com/2wgelmo.jpg

There you have it, 4 coats and still very visible light projection! :D

^yeah our LED tailights are very bright

Looks B.A.!

Take some Day pics, LED taillights ftw :happydance:

came out nice. good job

:iagree:

Yep, looks good.

So I recently went to the dealership for my first oil change and asked them if they would remove my 3rd brake light after the oil change. The plan was to take it home, paint it, and take it back to them to put back on.

To make a long story short, Even the dealership was afraid they would break the light by removing it, so they told me they'd rather not. My particular dealership has never had to remove one before, either. Grrrrr

looks great man.. nice job..

UPDATE: I finally painted the 3rd break light! I just masked it off while it was still on the car. The painting turned out well, saved me alot of time and effort regarding removal.

Although, I don't recommend doing it this way unless you really need/have to. Masking off between the light and top of spoiler is literally a small "crack" of a space. I was rolling pieces of tape into a cylinder and craming them in there, then using a small tool to push it tightly into the space and inbetween the body and light backing as much as I could. Also I taped off the entire section of the car just to be safe. I had to remove some tape residue off body when I was finished. Baby oil, other oils seem to work the best. I will post final pictures soon!

Very anxious to see how this looks with the 3rd taillight. I've heard removing it is a royal pain in the ***, but if I'm going to tint the other lights, it doesn't make any sense not to tint the 3rd...

Also, in your opinion, would the 3rd light be as hard to do without the spoiler? I don't have the sport spoiler on my car and am pondering just masking off for the 3rd light. I saw somewhere around this site that someone's leaked through the masking when they were doing some light tinting, so that worries me some, but then again, I've got a black car too.

Anyway, anxious to see how this turned out.

Check my album for the 3rd brake light painted. You can paint it while it is on the car, just make sure to cover everything good and spray light coat one at a time.

Sorry for the delay everyone, I'll post a picture tomorrow! The 3rd light will be 10 times easier to paint if you do not have a spoiler. As long as you cover the area well and do light layer/coats of paint, leaking shouldn't be a problem. I would imagine leaking happens because people don't paint properly, apply too much, creating drip, not keeping the nozzle in motion, etc.

Just triple check your masking job before starting, should be good. :tup:

Pic?

Do you have a link of the product you used for the tinting? Do we have DIY of the removal of the tails? If not someone should post it up! That would be sweeet!

Use Simota1's guide for the rear fog light install. He includes the taillight removal in his procedures

http://www.the370z.com/diy-section-d...p-install.html

:tup:

Thanks :)

I am curious to see if you have any pics of your project all finished. Also, any tips you have for bringing the milky/cloudy look to a more gloss look would be much appreciated.

Sorry once again for delay, ha ha been a busy bee.

http://i34.tinypic.com/mt8lyx.jpg
http://i33.tinypic.com/25znvw8.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/nvej2h.jpg

Looks great man! Since you have had this done a while back I was wondering if the cops ever give you grief about them?

I used this same method when I had my eclipse..When my Nismo is delivered, plan on doing this with my tail lights

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