Why does the right tail light assembly on almost all the 1985 sevens fog or look cloudy? and what can be done about it? Thanks

 

on mine is the left. don't know what to do either.

 

Left one on mine too.

 

It dosent seal properly anymore. The lens got dirty on the inside. You could seperate them but you have to do it carefully, and then seal it with some kind of strong adheasive.


-Ryan

 

Mine don't fog up.

 

why daddy why???????

Because HE told you so!!!!!

Dan

 

heh, Mine's on the right side too.

 

Mines only the left one, too!

I had a body shop seal that biotch up a year ago, and it's getting dirty inside again already

Methinks it's time to just tint 'em dark...

 

mines the right side, as with all my other sevens...all the right side...and you know why??? EXHAUST!!!

 

I know he told me so! so many times. and I still miss him more than ever. the older I get , the smarter he was.

 

Never thought I would have to dig this up again, but here is a procedure that I developed for cleaning plastic lights and lenses. I invented this little recipe when I had my 1991 Mazda Protegé. The first gen proteges had plastic headlights that would turn yellow and oxidize badly for some reason. Many of the guys on protegeclub.com were actually wetsanding their headlights to remove the oxidation. I found that this procedure I developed worked very well and the headlights looked almost perfect when I was done.

I'm not sure if your taillights are just dirty or if they are oxidized. At any rate, here is the old writeup I did from Protegeclub.com. (I just pasted it in verbatim.) Let me know if any of you guys have any questions. I imagine this would work very well on the Rx7's plastic tailights and turn signals....

************************************************** ***

You guys don't need to bother wet sanding anymore.... I've discovered a better way to fix the hazy lenses on our Protegés. You'll need..

1) Rubbing Compound

2) Scratch Out or Haze Remover

3) Nail Polish Remover

4) A Good Wax

5) Some towels and rags

Since the outside of the lenses are smooth this makes more sense to me to just polish the lenses, instead of sanding them and making a mess. Plus, it works good, and it's really fast, and probably cheaper too.

Start by cleaning off the lens with the nail polish remover. This will take off the cloudiness instantly and it will look great, but you'll notice the haze reappears in a matter of seconds. Thus, the other products come into play...

After you have cleaned off the lens with the nail polish remover, get a rag and the rubbing compound and basically work the lens over with as much elbow grease as you can muster. After you get the rubbing compound applied, take it off with a clean rag. The lens will look pretty crappy at this point, as the rubbing compound has probably stained it another color, i.e. red or clay.

Take the scratch and haze remover and do the same as you did with the rubbing compound. The scratch and haze remover should take off the stains the compound left behind, and your lens should be clear at this point, but rather dull.

Take off the scratch remover, and wax the lens. This will take away the dull finish, and hopefully leave you with a clean, clear, shiny lens.

You can do this procedure to any of the lenses on your car and it really clears them up. I even did my dome light, and it looks great now. I did the tail lights too. You just don't know how bad some of them are until you clean them up...

Good luck all, hope it works for you as good as it did for me....

 

that is SOOOOOOO true.

 

They make a clear plastic cleaner (to remove exterior defects) and polish (to make clean & shiny again) for this purpose: they're Meguir's mirror glaze products and they work pretty good, too.

The problem with our cars is dirt/water getting between the inner and outer lenses, and there's no way to clean it without taking the housing out and carefully removing the outer lens, cleaning out all the old adhesive, and regluing/clamping the housing together again. It's extremely difficult to get it apart without breaking something, usually the outer lens.

Why it keeps happening to some people's right taillight and other people's left one is the real mystery...

 

cause mills avatar sat too close to it

 

That would fog my tail light any time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

 

lol, that does it, I'm starting the official Mills avatar thread...

 

To get the clear lens off, soak the entire assembly (minus the electricals of course) in boiling water for about five minutes. This softens the glue so that the lens can be pried off without cracking.

Then thoroughly clean inside the assembly and reassemble with a clear, strong, watertight but pliable glue. Use clamps to secure the assembly together.

Be sure to keep the light assembly lieing flat rather than on edge during the curing period so that the glue can't run inside the lens.

This will clean the inside of the lamp, but for the outside of the lens(which will still be dull from age and scratches you'll need to buff them up as described in the previous posts.

 

I know I'm dabbling in necromancy here, but I thought I'd add something to Aviator's comments in this thread. I recently bought a pliable glue called Pliobond. It's supposedly aircraft-grade. I haven't used it yet to give it any recommendations, but I thought a product name might help.

 

Say Bob, it't the emissions and it's worse on white ones than dark ones (ask me how I know). I went out and took this photo to show you what I've got to deal with. The solution: wash the car a little more often than I do.

Ray

 

Hehe you think that's bad? look at mine:

 

Now we're talking rotary.

 

Damn, CDRad! Do you EVER clean that poor thing?

And you've gone and melted your bumper!

 

Hmm both of mine have fogged up bad, I'm gonna have a go with some of these methods above