I recently have been chatting with 86fakegt and he had an issue with his GT taillights...the typical delamination and crazing of the clear lenses. I decided to give him a hand and paint them back to a factory finish look.
The first thing was to set the lenses on my light box so I could really see where I was going to mask the lettering.
I then masked the letters using 1/8" wide 3M vinyl stripe tape.
Then I masked the clear portion with the same tape and since the tape is vinyl, some really nice curves can be made to follow the edges. You can clearly see the delamination on the left panel. It was really bad.
I then sprayed the black. I used the Auto-Air brand of water based black because it covers very well yet goes on very thin so I would not have a huge edge around the clear portion of the lense. It dries very flat with absolutely no gloss.
Once that dried, 5 coats of urethane was applied.
Here is one of the finished lenses after wetsanding and buffing.
And to give you an idea about the gloss, here is a pic glancing across the "Pontiac". Notice it looks like glass. God I love a good urethane
Also, I wetsanded the clear portion of the lenses to remove any deep scratches with 2000 grit paper and buffed them out. The clear portion also is now flawless.
Anyway, I hope this encourages more of you to do this. It is really pretty easy and you can make your lenses look brand new and never have to worry about delamination again.
[This message has been edited by IMSA GT (edited 02-10-2009).]
WTF i remember when i saw them on my new fiero they were delaminated real bad very nice hard to beleave they were once on my GT how much would you charge to do my set of taillights?
WTF i remember when i saw them on my new fiero they were delaminated real bad very nice hard to beleave they were once on my GT how much would you charge to do my set of taillights?
Did you spray the clear urethane after you unmasked the letters or before?
I unmasked the letters first and then sprayed the clear over the lettering. It buffs out crystal clear so you never know there is clearcoat on there. Plus, I didn't want to feel any indentation where the letters are....just one smooth tail light. The only area that remained masked was the clear portion of the taillight. The reason was if anything ever happened to the clearcoat in that area, it would be difficult to sand off without damaging the lenses. This way with the lenses bare, you can buff out any scratches from the plastic without worrying about clearcoat.
They have good prices and have the custom paints that I use ( House Of Kolor ). The urethane that I used came in a 3 part kit. It had the clear, hardener, and flow enhancer. It is from their Kustom Shop brand of paints. Here is the link. It is the second one down the list. The 2k Super Flow Polyurethane Clear.
Nice dude! I don't know why others don't follow your example. Some paint, careful masking, and buffing.... it looks like new. Save yourself some money by doing t your way, plus with a outer clear coating- your protecting the plastic lens from minor scratches. It's a plus-plus in my book.
Nice dude! I don't know why others don't follow your example. Some paint, careful masking, and buffing.... it looks like new. Save yourself some money by doing t your way, plus with a outer clear coating- your protecting the plastic lens from minor scratches. It's a plus-plus in my book.
The paint pretty much permanently ends the delamination look....but I took the clear portions and sanded the lenses with 2000 grit paper. Then buffed them out. All the scratches are now gone from the plastic.
I did the same thing with mine the only difference is that I clear over the whole taillights after unmasking "PONTIAC". I also sanded the taillamps before spraying the clear, I did not want to have a small edge between the parts I painted black and the parts where it just had clear. I was very happy with my results.
Where did you buy all the supplies? I went to advanced auto and they didn't have anything...
I used automotive grade paints. I usually always order from a particular vendor because if I buy paint locally, it is triple the price here in the Bay Area. I buy from TCP Global out of San Diego, Ca.
[This message has been edited by IMSA GT (edited 02-15-2009).]
All of the paint is designed to be sprayed out of a spray gun. I believe you can MAYBE and I say maybe, get away with doing the black in spray can and using a can of Dupont Nason clearcoat in a spray can. I don't know that you will be able to get the gloss like I did without some serious sanding and buffing but I imagine it could be done.
Alright, I might give that a shot with the spray can. The tops of my tail lights are super faded. If you decide to make business out of it just let us know
wow that is awesome i got my lights cheap and they currently need work. to a previous poster i know either advanced or autozone sells an automotive paint but ive never used it so i dont know of its quality.
i got these lights today from ups and i must say these look BETTER then new yes i said better then new. they have a better gloss and look very nice. also it solves the delamination problem. thanks imsa gt. me and him had a discussion about these possibly being up for sale so take a peek in the mall these will be on here for 2-3 days and if they do not sell they will be possibly hitting ebay.
Out of curiousity why didnt you unmask the outer portion?
Ive fixed some clear plastic head lights by sanding them down smooth with 2000 grit then clear coating them (looks brand new) wouldnt it work just as well and keep the clear even all the way across?
Id imagine you have a "lip" all the way around the clear section now right? or am I mistaken what you ment?
Out of curiousity why didnt you unmask the outer portion?
Ive fixed some clear plastic head lights by sanding them down smooth with 2000 grit then clear coating them (looks brand new) wouldnt it work just as well and keep the clear even all the way across?
Id imagine you have a "lip" all the way around the clear section now right? or am I mistaken what you ment?
The only reason that I did not spray the clear portion of the lens is because with paint, if it gets scratched, you can repair it. With just clearcoat on a clear surface, if it gets damaged, it will be difficult to sand and re-clear without getting some distortion in the lens. Plus, I recently did a set for a member who requested that I clear over the entire lens. It looked great until I held it up to the light and noticed one of my cats black hairs ended up in the clear....what do you do now? Fortunately, it was so small that the only way to see it was to look very close at the lens but my point is that it wasn't perfect and that is what I strive for.
As far as a lip around the clear portion of the lens, I actually sand and feather the edge to where you barely feel any trasition between the clear portion and the painted. You CAN feel something but not anywhere as noticeable as you might think.
[This message has been edited by IMSA GT (edited 04-04-2009).]
IMSA GT, thank you for posting up the know how on how to rid my GT taillights of the dreaded delamination. This has been something that has plagued my 87GT for many a year now. For anyone that has this issue, this is really a great way to rid your taillights of that unsightly delamination. Never again will i have to look at the plastic pealing apart. I would have given you a plus IMSA GT, but I already gave you one for something else.
Could you urethane the notchback tail lights? Mine are constantly being ruined by kicked up rocks, and there are now some marks I can't even polish/sand out.
Why not urithane the clear part of the lense? Rather then having to sand/buff it...
I cleared a few sets that I did for people. At first, I needed to get a test set so in case the clear didn't look right, I didn't damage a good set. Since I have tested it, I now clear the entire lens.
Any way to paint the inside? Or is that more difficult as you would have to remove the rest of the black before spraying...
Well, you can't remove the black since it is poured in during the manufacture. You can paint the inside of the lens if you want to tint them but you can't remove the black portion just to paint the lens. Now if you wanted to do custom lettering like I did for my IMSA, you can remove the black and re-stencil the letters in black paint:
So, you remove all the black out of the lens and then restencil the lettering, or do you just remove the lower portion and stencil the 'IMSA'? Have you put up a specific thread about this? How hard would it be to do only 3 letters below the PONTIAC with the split in the tailight? That is awsome, by the way! Vince
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