I am planning to clean up and repaint, etc my tail light lenses on my 71 Cutlass. I have a bunch of extra lenses. Has anyone here done this? I think I will scruff up the painted part and then repaint. I'm guessing I don't want a real shiny chrome type paint, maybe a argent?? Any ideas/recommendations will be appreciated. Thanks!!

 

Greg - I'm getting ready to do this myself. Check this thread for ideas on the best paint. From what I can see, the taping/masking is going to be tricky. How were you planning to handle that?

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...ing-paint.html

 

agreed on the krylon dull aluminum, its a good match and it doesnt have that shiny silvery I just got spray paints look to it.

heres a link to my tailight resto, the masking part was a PITA, fortunetly I farmed most of that part out to my wife and my bud that helps me w my car ....so I gues it wasnt so bad LOL

 

I just did this on my 72 lenses. I agree with the Krylon dull aluminum. Plastic is finicky for paint adhesion. I buffed the lenses with Meguires plastic scratch remover before paint and then cleaned good with wax and grease remover. Washed them in the dish washer without my wife knowing and then taped and painted. I found it easier to apply the masking tape and then trim it with an exacto knife than to try to carefully align the tape edge. A little wax to the red part after painting and they look like new.

 

Thanks, Scott, I checked the thread and the others- alot of good info. My car is a '71 so I don't think the masking will be near as bad as a '72... I plan to start on mine this winter.

 

Ha! Too funny about the dish washer!! Good advice, Thanks.

 

Removed tail light lenses from my car and got them all washed up along with some others I have accumulated. I noticed that the ones that were on the car were sort of hazed/cracked in the red plastic. The spare ones I have are in various conditions but all need to be cleaned and repainted. One of my spares is actually cracked and has opened up along the edge. I am going to use that 1 as the tester, I plan to restore all the lenses and will have extras when done. Last year I bought a set of tail light housings at the Olds Homecoming swap meet. They are in pretty good condition- one has a uncut wiring harness and the other has the plug cut off. I bought these because my right upper tail light has been cobbled up before I got it-see pic. So this winter I plan to restore the lenses and replace the right tail light assembly. Also I plan to get the fit better- one of the tail lights doesn't fit in the bumper right. I was hoping to do this w/out removing the bumper but I'm not sure you can get to the bolts unless you do, we'll see.

 

Soaked the cracked lens in drain cleaner/unclogger as recommended by dsolomon (thanks!). It did take off the paint after a day or 2- didn't hurt the plastic so I am going to get some more and soak the rest in a bigger pail or something. I found the krylon dull aluminum #1403 at the hardware store- I still need to get the megulars lens restorer.

 

Bought some more drain cleaner and soaked the rest of the lenses- what a difference! This stuff worked great- took off the paint in 2-3 hrs. It was Kroger brand. I decided to go ahead and remove the bumper from the car, it was actually pretty easy. I got all the old bulbs out but all of the contacts stuck in. I am in the process of attempting to free up the contacts using a piece of 3/4" heater hose stuck on the old bulbs and carb cleaner. I've got a few freed up but some are stubborn. I can't tell if maybe the springs are broken in the socket.

 

Looking really good Greg, that D/C soak works nice. I have one or two that could stand the same treatment! Look forward to the masking & painting phase. Thanks for sharing. Brett

 

if the socket is the same as the back up lights use some wd40 to loosen things up then you can slide the wires/contacts/spring assembly out of the socket it will make for easier better cleaning.

nice work so far !!!

attached is a pic of my back up lamp housing w the wire removed

 

 

The wire, spring, contact plate and support collar all stayed w the wire. That wire assembly just gets pushed thru the housing socket from the back towards the front. I had to release the wire from the connector so the spade end of the wire fit thru the housing.

Once its all apart its easy to clean the wire and associated assembly as well as the connector housing. Done carefully it can all be reassembled and looks pretty good IMHO plus now when you insert a bulb the spring assembly works correctly and easily and the bulb seats easily and is captive in the retainers like its supposed to be.

 

It's been so cold that I haven't been working on anything lately. I do have a old propane furnace in my garage but not going to use that at $4.32 a gallon!! Anyway I brought everything in and worked in the house. I found that the rubber insulators will slide up the wires and I could get to the inner contacts of the sockets by sliding out thru the front.( thanks RetroRanger for the suggestion). I broke one of the 43 year old plastic retainers but I used the one out of the cobbled up one the had the socket riveted in. I didn't even need to buy anything. I found that one of the extra ones I bought was fine as is after cleaning. I left it together and cleaned the socket and contacts with a cordless drill and a little wire brush attachment. I will use that one for the right one. I took apart the left tail lamp that is original to the car. I ended up cutting off the contact from the wire after pulling it away to pull away the insulation. Then after the socket is empty I cleaned it out w/the wire brush and carb cleaner. Then I stripped the original wires back 1/4" or so the ended up soldering the ends back together. It actually worked good. Maybe next weekend I'll get back to the lenses.

 

Tried out w/battery charger-Works!! Painted inside of housings white.

 

looks good greg keep up the good work

 

I used a plastic headlight scratch remover on the small scratches that were on some of the lenses. Got them all painted and they all look pretty good. I have 6 of the bigger ones and 11 of the smaller ones. I picked out the best and put them on the housings (2 of each). If anyone is interested in any of the extras pm me. I probably don't really need so many spares!

 

Put the housings back in bumper and again noticed bad fit of lenses in the openings. This is a repop bumper that I bought 15 years ago or so. I figure the quality isn't as oem would be. You can see in the 1st pic the bad fit. I ended up elongating some of the holes the screws go thru the mounts into the housings. Looks a lot better.

 

Very Nice Greg. Patience and hard work wins out again/

 

Almost ready to go back on car, my wife will be glad to have the car parts out of her laundry room! When I put this bumper on years ago I replaced the rubber fillers at the ends. Only about a year after that I noticed the right filler was cracking and looked bad. So I ordered new ones from Motor City Supercars (on ebay). The 1st pic is the cracked old one. When I put the new one on I noticed there was quite a bump which caused the new molding to not fit right. I now think this was the cause of the other one to crack- Again the inferior repop stamping. Anyway I ground off the bump.. A little scary...

 

Got the bump smoothed out and rubber fits better. Used a little glue on the edges to set the rubbers. Well got the parts back out to the garage but not yet back on the car. But wont be long.... I hope.... Yes Spring will come, Sometime....

 

Pm sent regarding extra tail lights

 

Gotcha Dave, I'll get back to ya.

 

Greg, make sure those lights work good with no question marks. I restored mine on the bench but had to play with one of the sockets. Lubed it up and got the spring freed up and thought all was good. Bench tested everything worked great. Back on the car and 6 months later the dag gum thing quits again sure is a lot easier changing this out on the bench than on the car.

 

Yeah I checked them with a battery charger-all ok. But like you say the old grease, etc sure makes it easy to malfunction. I think lots of times everything works fine until a bulb burns out, then it gets changed which pushes in the contacts and they stick in- now more problems!! Got the bumper back on the car. One weird thing I noticed the license plate light and the gas gauge sender use the same type connection and roughly the same color wire. I think if you hooked to the wrong one you would feed 12 volts to your gas gauge sender and probably fry it. I left those 2 unconnected until I put the battery back in the car and check which one has voltage on it when lights are on.

 

That is too funny! I just noticed the same this weekend! Scratched my head to figure it out.