Lx tail light restoration..

billison

I like tinted tail
15 Year Member
Feb 27, 2006
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Any good links to a job like
This?

I figure the steps will be polishing or clearing the inside , there is some black that fades that’ll need some

The housing will need redone in black and silver right?
 
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When I did mine, I removed the lenses and cleaned the inside and repainted the inside a bright silver. I replaced all the bulbs while I was in there. You will need new butyl tape. LMR sells a kit that includes the tape and clips. I just resprayed the outside black part of the housing with a flat black trim paint. I did that when I installed my 83-84 lenses
 
Here’s my question, on the actual housing my tails are pretty good, but are cracked and I’m thinking about swapping over to cobra tails. Any ways on the actualhousing where it clips in, are those little clips repairable? I like my original housing because they are red.
7DF95D7C-95E6-43DB-9467-A499C67BDC57.jpeg
 
Are you talking about the tabs on the housings where the metal clips "bite" Devil? If so, you might need new housings.
 
Paint the inside housings white. You can paint the reverse light section chrome or silver if you want.

Reason for white is that it diffuses the light better and scatters it. In a brake light, you aren't looking to light up the trees 50 feet away, you just want to be seen. So by painting the reflector white, you create a more intense scattering of light inside the lens.

Think "light to see with, vs light to be seen with".

Headlights, and to a lesser degree, reverse lights, you want to reflect and project that light. Other lights are just signal lights.
 
Are you talking about the tabs on the housings where the metal clips "bite" Devil? If so, you might need new housings.
Yeah on the actual housing, where the lens pushes into then that parts I guess bites down. Back in the day it was a thing for people to just come pull your lights off during high school, bc all the GT guys wanted to swap to LX lights, guessing at some point some one messed mine up, to which I used an anti theft device “screws” so they couldn’t just run up and do the pull & snatch. My passenger side is fine still but the drivers needs those screws to keep it in place or the lens will just fall out.
 
Yeah on the actual housing, where the lens pushes into then that parts I guess bites down. Back in the day it was a thing for people to just come pull your lights off during high school, bc all the GT guys wanted to swap to LX lights, guessing at some point some one messed mine up, to which I used an anti theft device “screws” so they couldn’t just run up and do the pull & snatch. My passenger side is fine still but the drivers needs those screws to keep it in place or the lens will just fall out.

If those tabs aren't there I would shop for a housing. You might be able to get away with it if there are just a couple missing, but there aren't many there anyways.
 
Not to be the class idiot here, but do you just want the metal clips?

You said the housing is cracked, but want to keep them because they’re red. They’d be fairly easy to fix. How large are the cracks (picture maybe?).

The lx lenses are nicer to me as well. If you’d rather refresh those though, that’s pretty easy.

Wait a minute, this is Bill’s thread. Bill, I can paste the area of my build we’re I redid mine if that would be helpful. I think they came out pretty nice.

Here’s a gratuitous picture of when I finished them,
88CBA674-79D7-4111-A485-E7FC68C56469.jpeg

Here’s the link to my cliff notes thread.
https://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/threads/83-t-top-coupe-cliff-notes-edition.900362/page-11
 
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Not to be the class idiot here, but do you just want the metal clips?

You said the housing is cracked, but want to keep them because they’re red. They’d be fairly easy to fix. How large are the cracks (picture maybe?).

The lx lenses are nicer to me as well. If you’d rather refresh those though, that’s pretty easy.

Wait a minute, this is Bill’s thread. Bill, I can paste the area of my build we’re I redid mine if that would be helpful. I think they came out pretty nice.

Here’s a gratuitous picture of when I finished them,
88CBA674-79D7-4111-A485-E7FC68C56469.jpeg

Here’s the link to my cliff notes thread.
https://www.stangnet.com/mustang-forums/threads/83-t-top-coupe-cliff-notes-edition.900362/page-11
Ha that was me about the housing and yes I could probably just spray the new housings. The clips I was talking about are the ones in blue circles. One of mine is completely broken but the others don’t look bad but for whatever reason the lens doesn’t stay snug in there any more, like the little prong on the clip with the teeth just aren’t biting down. The housing is fine though other wise for being original it’s my lens, they have some cracks. I think the LX lenses are the cleanest looking but I also like the cobra lenses as well. Any who it looks as though those clips can just pull off or be replaced. Not sure where to find them.
7E46982C-9422-4BDC-8826-BC4F2F88F381.jpeg
874C9C61-2ECD-41B2-B973-9E75CD039BF7.jpeg