I now dub these...

..."Phantom Tails" (hey...it works)

They took a little longer than I anticipated but I'm satisfied with the result. I used one coat of the Pactra window tint and 5 coats of clear. Only one coat of tint since I didn't want it too dark.

Here's a quick rundown of what I did:

This is what they looked like painted (pre sanded). You can see the "orange peel" effect in the clear



I then lightly wet sanded with 1000grit then did more with the 2000 grit. The goal here is to get rid of the orange peel look. The tails will look really cloudy when you get finished with this step. Here's a pic of it should look like:



I then used a rubbing compound and rubbed the heck out of them (I used Turtle Wax Premium rubbing compound FWIW). You'll start to see the shine come back when you remove the compound. Next I applied the wax and watched the shine really take shape. For reference, here's a pic of a finished taillight next to one with just the rubbing compound:



And the finished product on the truck:









UPDATE:

Quick update since I've recieved couple of PM's about this. The only prep I did to the taillights prior to painting was to spray some windex on the lights and clean them off with a wet cloth. The key is that they are completly clean. I did no sanding prior to painting.

 

that looks pretty legit to me!!!
I need to redo mine bad

so sand
rubbing compound
wax
paint
clear
in that order?

 

That looks good!!

 

Looks nice.

Order...

Tint
Clear
Sand
Polish
Wax

 

wow yummy

 

Nice and well done.

 

Thanks guys!

Three man has the order right

 

alright thanks. when i did mine the first time i did it out of order...I know what im doing this weekend!!!

 

nice. did they get noticebly dimmer @ night?

 

Nice! When I used to use that stuff, one coat didn't do anything for me.

 

Looks good I want to do mine

 

Haven't seen them at night yet but I can only imagine it would have to be somewhat dimmer. It's not much tint so I don't think it'll make a big difference.

 

very nice work.to each there own.not my taste for sure.good way to get rear ended imo.

 

I agree. I guess I'm too old to get the concept of darkening the taillights. Is this legal or don't you care?

 

How? They aren't that much darker then stock. It's a ver suddle tint he put on.

 

well ive seen SOME that r dark.and being a commercial truck driver that is a bad mix for sure.any alteration to the color of lights isnt a good idea.its hard to tell how dark yours r but i just dont think it a great idea.just my 2cents

 

I see your concern and the same was mine when I initially thought about doing this. The difference with mine is the tint is really light (only one coat applied) and it didn't make but a subtle difference in the appearance. The red in the housing is still plenty visibly. Mine are about the same shade as these stock Chevy Trailblazer tail lights:


I figure if an auto manufacturer is putting a similar shade tail light on thousands of their vehicles then I should be ok

 

I think we should meet up so you can help with mine

 

EXCELLENT JOB

 

were do you get the tint spray