Spent all day re-sealing & re-tinting back lights!

Ben Harris · Post by **Ben Harris** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 5:53 pm

Well, I've spent the best part of today (well, from about 11:00am, anyway) dismantling cleaning up, repairing and reconditioning my rear lights, and I must say that I'm very pleased with the results!

My nice new 2.0L ES had leaky rear lights, and although they weren't too faded, it was obvious that the fading had begun, so I thought I'd do the job properly! Yesterday, I bought some of that rear-light tinting (darkening) spray that the boy-racers use to make their Vauxhall Novas look, well.... [insert your own description here!]. Even though it had "not street legal" written on the can, I figured that as the 480 already has dark tinted rear lights, I could probably use it to repair the fading effect. I also bought some clear laquer spray as well, to add a bit of shine to them.

I must say I'm very impressed with the results. The lights now look nice and dark (although not too stupidly dark so that the bulbs are barely visible!), and there's a nice shine to them also. I would take pictures and show you, but it's dark outside now, so they wouldn't look any good anyway! Unfortunatly I won't be home from work at any time next week when the sun's still shining, but I'll try and get some pictures taken next weekend.

For the Â£25 that I think it's probably cost me in total (Â£6.00 for the Silicon sealer to refit them, Â£12.99 for the light tinting spray, and Â£6.00 for the clear laquer spray), I'm very pleased with the result.

Ben.

MatBat · Post by **MatBat** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 5:58 pm

I'm sure that this info will attract a lot of intrest from many desperate 480 owners! Good thinking Ben.
Hope it all stays good now

All the best

pol · Post by **pol** » Fri Dec 05, 2003 10:13 pm

Did you take the lights off from the car or seal around them?
I sealed them last year. But now they leak again. Think it's an annual thing to do???

pol

Ben Harris · Post by **Ben Harris** » Sat Dec 06, 2003 12:14 am

I took them off the car. I was thinking of just sealing round them, but as one of them was damaged, I decided that if I took them off, it'd be easier to repair the damage. Basically the top edge on one of the lights was missing a big chunk, about 4 inches long. I actually got as far as filling the missing area with bodyfiller, with the idea that I could paint over the top edge with black paint before re-tinting the lights and hopefully it wouldn't show, but I actually managed to find the broken section of light, fallen down inside the boot. I then removed my nicely filled (and sanded down) repair and carefully glued the original bit back in.

To try and do it neatly, I completely removed the foam sticky material which had originally been holding the lights in and then, after re-tinting and then laquering the lights, I put some silicoln sealant on the light units themselves, and all around the edge of the metalwork on the car body. I came to the conclusion that I'd try this first, and see if it leaked during the week at all, and if it did then I'd get some black silicoln sealant, and seal round the edges again from the outside. It wouldn't be as neat, but as my car is metalic black anyway I didn't think it would look too bad. Thankfully though, the next day it rained non-stop, and when I checked, no water had made it's way into the boot so I don't think I'll need to do this.

I'm hoping it's not an annual thing to do, and if it is, I won't be trying to remove the lights after seeing the mess that Chris made to the metalwork when removing the ones that had been silicolned into one his donor cars. Next time (which hopefully there won't be!), I'll just be sealing them from the outside.

All in all, this probably took me about 5 hours to do, but that includes removing the relevant bits of interior of the car, removing the lights, the glueing the repair, spraying the lights and laquering them, waiting for the paint and laquer to dry, praying it didn't rain before I'd got them back in the car again, and then silicolning them back in and refitting the interior. Oh, and repeatedly having my head hit by the boot lid, 'cause the gas struts need replacing and it kept trying to close on me!

I'll take some pictures tomorrow, and you can see whether you think the re-tinting effort was successful. If you're going to remove the lights, then in my oppinion, this is definatly worth doing whilst you're at it!

Ben.

MatBat · Post by **MatBat** » Sat Dec 06, 2003 9:00 am

Wow! Thatis a long post.

How many books have you written?

I'll publish them for you!

hereagain · Post by **hereagain** » Sat Dec 06, 2003 10:32 am

I am tempted to follow suite on this but have already sealed the lights with silicon. Do you reckon that this is possible to do without removing lights??

Is the tint really needed, or would the Laquer done a good job by itself??..

My car is also black metallic, so this might be completed on "Big Vern"!!!

Ben Harris · Post by **Ben Harris** » Sat Dec 06, 2003 1:01 pm

Another small 'article' for you!

...

Do you mean the tinting? Yes, I'd imagine it was possible with them still on the car. As long as you make sure that the entire back, and probably some of the side and roof (near the back) of the car is covered in newspaper (held down with masking tape), so that only the light cluster is showing, it'd be fine.

Just an extra bit which I should have included in my 'book' above

... When I did the tinting, I made sure that I'd covered the reflector bit of the cluster with masking tape, as I didn't want that darkened, but I took the tape off before I laquered them, so that it would provide a protective coating to the whole light.

You may be able to get away with just doing the laquering, and forget about the tinting. This is what Volvofox had suggested, long ago, on the old forum as a solution for repairing the lights. The reason for the tinting was to try and get rid of all the little white lines / tiny cracks that were visible, and for this job, it worked fine. Another idea (which is something I've half-tried in the past -- you'll see what I mean!), is to use some "back to black stuff" on the lights themselves, and then put the laquer on to seal it in. I've tried this from the applying it to the lights point of view, but not sealing it with the laquer. In my case they looked much better than they had done before (no white lines visible, 'cause the back to black had filled them in and made them dark), but still without the shine. The effect also wore off within a couple of weeks, and they were back to looking faded again. The laquer though would provide this shine, and also put a protective surface over it so that it didn't wear off, I'd imagine. -- Just something to give some thougt to...

If you do want to take them out, I've seen this kind of stuff in the DIY shops for removing silicoln. I don't know if it's any good, but it might be worth a try.

Ben.
(waiting for camera batteries to charge up so he can take pictures of the lights, and considering washing the car first as it looks filthy - my red one only needed washing every 3 months, I've only had the black one 2 weeks and it already needs doing

)

Ben Harris · Post by **Ben Harris** » Sat Dec 06, 2003 2:48 pm

I really should have washed both cars before taking the pictures, but I really wasn't feeling in the mood to! I did however, wipe down the lights on both cars with a damp cloth, and then let them dry before taking the pictures, so although the car itself isn't clean, the lights are! (which is particulalry visible in the bottom pictures!)

This is a little cut 'n' paste job which I threw together in Paint Shop Pro, to show the difference between the lights on my black 480 which have now been retinted, and the lights on my red 480 which I haven't done yet (although they don't look too bad, to be honest!)

pol · Post by **pol** » Sat Dec 06, 2003 7:23 pm

They look good mr Ben.
Mine have been replaced by the previous owner so are nice and shiny and non faded, but was really just wondering how easy they are to remove. Think i tried before but they were pretty stuck. Probably with that butyl stuff. Dont want to break them. That would be badddd.

The tinting stuff doesn't look like chavvy tinted lights. Looks normal. Good stuff.

pol

Ben Harris · Post by **Ben Harris** » Sat Dec 06, 2003 7:37 pm

Thanks!

To remove them, you'll need to remove the three nuts that hold them on. Two of them are quite plainly visible once you've removed the black bulb-holders, and the other one is harder to get to, described best as near the top of the indicator, where it doesn't light up. After that, it'll just be the silicoln that's holding them in, so I imagine you'd need to put that butyl stuff on beforehand, and leave it to work it's way in for a bit first.

Good luck!

Ben.

witchone · Post by **witchone** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 7:02 pm

Can someone please PM this to me, explain this to me in idiot proof form, asi am a woman, my back lights are very faded, even my dad has told me this. With a weekend trip being 250miles on motorway and country roads, i need better back lights, not the faded ones i have.
My dad would help me and my male friend, but both have admitted that they are very reluctant to touch my car, as they know nothing about it, and as Ford (eek) drivers they know nothing about some of the problems i incure
Toni

hereagain · Post by **hereagain** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 8:02 pm

Ben, you have any "before" pics??

Ben Harris · Post by **Ben Harris** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 9:13 pm

I haven't got any which I took (didn't think to take pictures before hand - will do next time for any mods/repairs I attempt!), but there are a few from when Tim was advertising it for sale. This is probably the best one, or you can see other pictures in the "for sale" section under this thread.