DIY: Tinting Tail Lights

I know there are a few threads out there with a tail light write up but mine is a bit different than usual.

Lets Begin:

Here are the supply's you will need in order to tint your tails properly.



First remove your tail lights & third brake light from the truck.



Next you want to take some soap and water and lightly wash the lights.

After you wash the lights you want to get a clean shop rag and put some lacquer thinner on it. Don't over wet the rag as you can always apply more thinner if nessecary. Once the thinner is on the rag rub down the outer side of each light. The thinner will give it a scuffed up / matted look. Once you have gone over the lights with enough thinner they should look like these:



Now its time to mix your paint. Put about 1/3 black in your spray gun and 2/3 clear. Mix well before spraying. What this allows for is a nice lighter coat of black letting you really manipulate how dark you would like your tail lights to come out. This also eliminated the step of clear coating and having to wait for your original base coat to dry.

The lights will show much lighter than they will cure so keep in mind to spray a bit lighter because you can always add more.

This is how they should turn out after you spray them. (Keep in mind my idea of tinting the tails was to get rid of the pinkish tint, not totally go blacked out with them)





Leave about 30 - 45 minutes of curing/drying time. You want to make sure that they have fully cured before you place them on the truck again.

Here are some before and after pictures of the lights...

Before:


After: (Crappy glare but you get the point)


Sorry about the pictures, all i had was an iPhone and some of them didn't come out as clear as i would have liked. Later this afternoon i will take high resolution pictures of the lights to show the full effect.

The up side to using the lacqer thinner method is that you can always return stock whenever you want. All you would have to do is take some more thinner to the lights and scrub them pretty hard to get the tint off. The other upside is one coat with a maximum of 1 hour drying time. (Usually they are cured within the first 25 minutes but its safe to let them cure for 30 - 45 minutes minimum.


Hope you all have enjoyed my diy write up. It is my first write up so go easy on me! Feel free to ask any questions I may not have coverd.

-Jason

 

pretty bad ass man. i don't have all of those supplies, but i have done it with vht niteshades. the niteshades sucks. i just sent out my tails to have professionally tinted.... similar to this.

good job, looks great!

 

damn, thats pretty professional. I think you should offer this as a service as this is quite a steep investment in equipment and paint for most members. Awesome job tho!

 

or you can go get vht. aout 12 bucks at autozone

 

definitely doesn't produce the same results. i've used that stuff before. mixing black and clear and using the proper spray gun gives a 100x better results in my opinion.

 

Not in California you can't, only off the net. I have my own paint gun and might think about doing it this way.

 

nice writeup!!!

 

cool writeup... if only I had all the supplies :/

 

It's not even comparable.

 

Nice write up man. Im thinking of doing this but I live in NJ. I'm sure it's illegal

 

I picked some of that VHT up at PepBoys here in California, granted it is harder to find.

Nice job OP, looks good!

 

Not if you do one coat

 

Very nice write up. Thanks for your effort.