Thanks! And so it begins...

 

Wooop woooP! I did it, it looks AWESOME. It really is the simplest stuff that can make us so happy. I love seeing the car without that chrome.

Thanks all for the help - really was much appreciated. I'll post the pictures soon.

 

Just had this done today.





Much thanks to Lyle Beckwith!
http://web.mac.com/brad.powers/iWeb/...nt%20Page.html

Jim

 

Rally, where did you get the tint spray from? I've never been able to find it. And did you mask off the chrome or take the light completely apart? I really want to do this but am pretty scared about messing up the lights. So what do you all scalse this from 1-10. Thanks in advance.

 

Well there are two options i know for the spray. Option one is Tamiya's black spray tint which is meant to tint the windows of RC and model cars. It works wonders for tinting lights etc.

Option two is called Nightshade tint and can be purchased mainly online or at summit racing stores. Its meant for tinting lights on cars

I removed the chrome....on the pre-facelift cars, it comes apart pretty easily. So you are just left with the lenses and it requires no further masking etc unless you want to do something crazy.

If you are scared....do what i did, find a spare light or spare set. Generally ebay has some etc. I was using one that had been cracked by a friend and he didnt need it anymore. I think once you do one and know how easy it is, you will be able to tackle the real ones on your car. First one takes a little while and then after that experience, you can do them in 15 minutes

 

I really had a lot of fun doing mine. If you are patient you will NOT mess it up. You run the dremmel along the seal for an inch to get a hole started and then you literally take a screwdriver and start prying. It's not a delicate process either - you have to pry.

It was great to see the chrome come off as well - so satisfying. Now that the light is mounted again, you can't see any of the black sealnt. Great!

Go do it in an afternoon, it was an extremely satisfying first "major surgery" for me. It looks great with the wiper deleted and badge off.

 

There was a thread on here a while ago were instead of red tint some guy with a PW MINI pulled his taillights apart and just painted the chrome trim ring black and it looked really good. Ill see if i can find that, cause for me i would like to MINImize the amount of red on my car not increase it.

 

If you wanted to do that, you could actually paint the whole red piece except for the circles of light... that would be quite a lot of work though when you could just tint the whole outer lens (tho I think this way would look more factory) Also not too sure how legal that would be!

 

I did it a while back, was easy once I got over the whole baking the tail lights thing.

REmove tails

bake
open with a screw driver
paint (nade chrome black to match the JB)
regule
re-install


99% of the people that see my car are none the wiser, glad I did it for me not them

 

I cracked mine open last January... opted to just paint the chrome trim black. Just fyi... The lights I painted did have black plastic under the chrome plating (from a 2003 mcs). It is gloss black if you can remove the plating. I wanted something a bit less glossy so I used Krylon textured black plastic paint... the result was good.

pics

 

THATS what i was talking about! I am thinking about trying that on my 06