Cleaning Tail Lights

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DKWW2000
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Cleaning Tail Lights

Post by DKWW2000 »

At RRG I noticed my Tail lights were not as bright as some others. so I took to giving them a overhaul:-

As can be seen they look smokey inside:-

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I sprayed the groove where the outer cover adheres to the casing with a solvent based lubricant to soften up the adhesive, & then removed the small clip at the indicator end:-

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After about 5 mins it softens the putty like glue so you can remove the cover gently:-

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As I thought dirt had built up inside the lense & cover:-

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To remove the lenses I bent the small tag/clip to allow them to be removed without cracking them:-

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I used solvent to clean the lenses & then used T cut to polish them:-

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I cleaned the reflectors very gently as they scratch easily:-

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To stick it back together I used a clear waterpoof adhesive, It does what it says on the tube:-

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The end result was brighter lights:-

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RX7 FB S3 - RX7 FC TII Vert
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Re: Cleaning Tail Lights

Post by DB RX63 »

Pete,

What a marvelous idea.

I have several sets I could send if you want to offer a service..............
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Re: Cleaning Tail Lights

Post by KiwiDave »

Great writeup Pete. I'd quite like to give that a go, or I could just send you a pair if you want to offer a service ;)
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Re: Cleaning Tail Lights

Post by DT205 »

i'm currently doing the same to my taillights. what is T cut?
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Re: Cleaning Tail Lights

Post by DKWW2000 »

T Cut Original is a mildly abrasive Polish that removes oxidation on paint. It was used a lot before lacquer top coat so it polished the paint by removing a thin film:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/T-Cut-ORIGINA ... SwxCxT3OYt
RX7 FB S3 - RX7 FC TII Vert
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2 x NSU Ro 80s - 2 x S2 RX7s - Suzuki RE 5 - DKW(Hercules) W2000 - Norton (Krauser) Commander
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Re: Cleaning Tail Lights

Post by DT205 »

So it's just a brand of polish. I've got different meguiar's polishes so that will do i suppose.
Thanx for the info!
th:

did you also polish the big outer lens?
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Re: Cleaning Tail Lights

Post by codge »

DT205 wrote:So it's just a brand of polish. I've got different meguiar's polishes so that will do i suppose.
It's more a mild abrasive. It used to be in a paste form for cutting back old paint surfaces.
Particularly good if you touched say a gatepost gently and left some gate paint on your car. You could usually cut right back so the gate paint disappeared.
Afterwards it always needed a separate top coat of good polish. Maybe they've combined 2 in 1 nowadays.

I'll stick to my rusty old tin of paste.
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Re: Cleaning Tail Lights

Post by m swann »

Excellant post. will start going through mine soon.
Thank you.
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