RockRodHooligan Posted December 11, 2011 Posted December 11, 2011 I have a couple pairs of tail lights, from my MJ and the new donor bed, that I was going to sell off, and decided to try and clean them up a bit first to get a little extra money out of them. My OCD got the best of me and I took it a lot farther than I had planed. Was just going to wash them off and buff up the lenses, but there was a lot of junk and dirt inside the lenses, and they seemed to be just a little dull to me. So I got to looking at them and figured it wouldn't be too hard to split the lense from the housing, scrub it all down real well and hit the inside of the housing with some good 'ol Kentucky Chrome spray paint, and then glue it all back together nice and tight, and make it a lot more water resistant than it was from the factory. I started to use the Turtle Wax headlight restoration kit on them, after a few hours sanding on one light I figured that it was taking WAY too long, and broke down and goit the Meguires kit. Once I got that far I decided to open it up and clean everything inside. After getting the first one open, I decided to give a second one a shot, that one didn't come apart nearly as easily, and I trashed the housing. So I grabbed another one that the lense was in pretty bad shape and split it open to make one good one. Both opened up with a fresh coat of some Kentucky Chrome. Here is a compairison of old/new I still need to finnish buffing them, and I'll clear coat the lenses for protection before I glue them back together. I really like how they have turned out, so much I think I'm going to hold on to them and use them on the truck for a little while and show it off without bed armor while the truck is all new and shiny and I'm making my shake down runs, then pull the lights and put corner armor on before take it out and really beat on the truck. Just to do something a little extra, and make use of the new clean lenses, I'll be working on fitting it for LED turn signals and halogen reverse lights at work tomorrow, stay tuned.
RDAN1 Posted December 11, 2011 Posted December 11, 2011 These look great!!! How/what did you use to get them apart? and have you reassembled any of them yet? if so, what did you use to seal them back together ?
gogetemturbo Posted December 12, 2011 Posted December 12, 2011 Holy snot bubbles Batman! That lens looks awesome! I like the Meguires stuff, I've used it on headlights and it works really well. The lens just looks amazing! Did you buff it completely by hand or did you use an attachment for a drill motor or something? I've used one of the Mother's Power balls before with pretty good success but nothing like that. Well done!
tbrand Posted December 15, 2011 Posted December 15, 2011 Wow... those look really, really good. I'm impressed with your work.
EBasil Posted December 15, 2011 Posted December 15, 2011 They do look great. I'm interested to hear and see your results with LED lights in there!
Exgrayxj Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 Now, that is impressive! Looks like new. If my tails looked that good it would only make the rest of the truck look worse :doh:
Backdraft Posted December 20, 2011 Posted December 20, 2011 Thanks for showing this. It will be my next project for a lazy day!
RockRodHooligan Posted December 22, 2011 Author Posted December 22, 2011 These look great!!! How/what did you use to get them apart? and have you reassembled any of them yet? if so, what did you use to seal them back together ? I carefully pried them apart, tried using a heat gun at first and that didn't go quite so well, cold seemed to work better. I haven't glued them back together yet, still working on them. Holy snot bubbles Batman! That lens looks awesome! I like the Meguires stuff, I've used it on headlights and it works really well. The lens just looks amazing! Did you buff it completely by hand or did you use an attachment for a drill motor or something? I've used one of the Mother's Power balls before with pretty good success but nothing like that. Well done! There was buffed by had mostly before I finally sucked it up and bought the Maguires kit. I ran into a small problem trying to finish one of the lenses, after buffing them most of the way, I decided it would be a good idea to clear coat them for a nice protective coat. something interacted wrong and the clear coat cracked like crazy that first coat. So I'm going to have to sand that one back down and try again, the other one has been wet sanded with 2000 grit only. I'm just going to spray it like that, no buffing, tried it on a test part first this time, worked a lot better. I'll post up some pics of them when I finish this time. Now for the lighting: Halogen reverse lights I played around with one of the lights I screwed up trying to pull them apart, and tweaked the socket hole to fit a 3157 light socket(like used on the 97+ XJs) since I was planning on rewiring the whole truck anyway, and we had 3157 LED bulbs in stock, but after a little digging I found that there are also 1156 LED replacement bulbs by Jam Strait, we just don't stock them, so rather than having to completely change the wiring and socket, I'll be ordering the 1156 LED bulbs. Now if anyone does want to go though the trouble of using the 3157 bulb, this is all you have to do to make them work in the tail light housing Just elongate the notch just counter clockwise to the locking clip
Larryadams Posted December 29, 2012 Posted December 29, 2012 They do look great. I'm interested to hear and see your results with led bulb in there! Yes these led lights looks awesome
cruiser54 Posted December 29, 2012 Posted December 29, 2012 795 bulbs also work in the stock sockets. Halogen bulb on an 1156 base.
HOrnbrod Posted December 29, 2012 Posted December 29, 2012 795 bulbs also work in the stock sockets. Halogen bulb on an 1156 base. I tried those for my backup lights. Nice and bright, but they didn't last too long unfortunately. Less than a year.
Shelby918 Posted July 14, 2021 Posted July 14, 2021 What did you mean by "cold worked better"? Can you elaborate on the whole process of separating the lens from the housing?
ghetdjc320 Posted July 14, 2021 Posted July 14, 2021 Holly thread resurrection lol. I’ve removed the lenses once and found that soaking the whole assembly in soapy water for a few days softened up the adhesive slightly to make prying it apart a bit easier.
Shelby918 Posted July 15, 2021 Posted July 15, 2021 I'll try that. Does cursing at it and having some drinks help?
Pete M Posted July 15, 2021 Posted July 15, 2021 56 minutes ago, Shelby918 said: Does cursing at it and having some drinks help? not yet that I've found. maybe I just need more of each?
howeitsdone Posted August 1, 2021 Posted August 1, 2021 I'm curious why there aren't tail light guards out there. That's a pretty standard upgrade to Wranglers. With them being so expensive to replace, this seems like the perfect solution. ATTENTION WELDERS: If you build it, they will come... I feel like someone could make a bit of money selling these.
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