got info from: http://www.g2ic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161466

okay i've been searching around to find out who makes these taillights for DA's and to find out the were homemade....nice...


so i just posted this up for all DA lovers to know how to do it..
Clearing my tails.

I first started with the CASTROL superclean on the 90-91 tails. Sure they look great... until comparing them to G2IC member waramp's modified clear after-market tails.

I even tinted my supercleaned 90-91 tails to give them a dark cherry red look but still didn't give me what I wanted. I didn't like the look of the faded white look the tail was giving me... but wanted them to look "clear". After searching, I found info on modified 92-93 tails. They looked identical to waramp's tails so I decided to get right to it.

So I started with a set of damaged 90-91 tails using a heat gun I purchased at crappy tire for $20 to practice and test my heat gun.

Sure, this thing worked great... but took a bit of time.
I have modified my 98 RAV4 tails on 2 separate occasions using the oven method, so you can say I have considerable experience in terms of baking the lights... but I wanted to make use of my new toy I just bought.

So after quite some time, I finally got this apart. My first thing I got a hold of was the white strip with the pink lines. This thing was so sensitive to anything touching it, I could just rub the pink off with my fingers. So I kept rubbing them with a cloth until they turned white. Some of the white I noticed were gray. I thought I wasn't rubbing enough so I continued until it turned black. **that's when I noticed with the superclean method people vent about when their lines turn black... they did too much to it**. I thought it was grey because I didn't get the pink enough, but it was the opposite...

I think the pink lines were probably a darker RED originally... so this is what happens to the lines...
Red -> Pink -> white -> gray -> black -> clear.

I used a 2000 grit sandpaper to get the rest of the white to appear black.
Then I thought... hmmm... maybe I can dismantle my other set of 90-91 damaged tails (ya, I have a few of them laying around...), do this, and add the plastic piece to my 92-93 tails. I like the look of the 92-93 tails more than the 90-91. I don't really like the look of the white part to look strong as I have a black car... so I think this would blend in with the car more.So after some time and patience, this is what your plastic piece can look like. This can take 5-10 minutes - depending on how detailed you want the black stripe to look. I also tried to rub superclean on the stripe directly with a cloth. It removed a lot of the red/pink but struggled with the white to black. I strongly suggest you use 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper and wet sand this down.
when your done:







I used 2000 Grit sandpaper (1500 works too, but won't look as smooth as the 2000) and carefully and lightly wet sanded until I got rid of all the red/white. The edges and corners are VERY tough... if the edges seem to be taking a while, its not just you. It took me much longer. When I was doing this on my practice set, the lines were damaged - they had knicks, and the stripes were ruined. If your lines have surface damage, this modification will not be 100% successful, so when taking the lights apart be VERY careful not to damage the plastic piece with the lines. I forced the practice set apart cracking the lens and damaged the plastic piece on my practice set.

 

Old news...and I think this would belong in the Tech section.

Still a great mod...I miss my DA at times. Great little commuter car.


Modified by TEXN3 at 1:00 PM 4/24/2007

 

Old news, but still cool to do nonetheless.

 

i wuz searching for it in H-T but couldnt find it here so i just revamped it

 

Thanks! Good info

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Phil DeVtec &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Old news, but still cool to do nonetheless.</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Agent_EM1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thanks! Good info </TD></TR></TABLE>

 

I did this a few years ago with my 90-91 DB1 taillights. I left the lines grey so if gave them a sort of tinted look. Here's a couple old pics of them.


And yes i know my plates are showing on the first pic, but they're old plates anyways. And the rear end is much cleaner now too no more emblems either!!

 

^^ nice..........