refinish s4 tail lights black piece?
 

My tail lights are in decent condition, i'm too poor to buy a set of S5's(oh i would love to...)

SO. my tail light black surrounding piece is kind of faded, and is almost gray. i saw a 3M refinishing kit for 30$ to shine up lenses but i wasnt sure if it was the case for the outer piece also. its weird because when it is wet, it turns nice and black again but when dry it is nasty and gray.

i searched for "refinishing" and such and found nothing so that is why i am asking here..

im a little afraid, the S4 light are growing on me...as much as i hated them before actually owning the car :lol:

please help me make my car pretty! and if you guys point me in the right direction, i'll try to do a nice write up with pictures! :icon_tup::icon_tup::icon_tup:

I have had great success sanding and epoxy priming the housings, then sanding that and spraying black paint on the housings- comes out great.
Before you do it polish the lenses out really well and you will end up with a set of better then new lights

I sanded mine down to smooth out the surface, since they were really faded and took on a textured finish (I believe I started with a random old coarse sanding block I had lying around, then 400, then 600, then some really fine stuff I had left over from my model building days), then sprayed rattle can clear coat on them and buffed that. Looks really good, and is the only 'paintless' S4 tail restoration I've seen.

The result (before and after):
Attachment 722252
Attachment 722253

how can you call them paintless if you rattle canned them?

that is exactly how mine look. so i just need to sand them down....and rob, clear coat sounds a bit easier to work with over black paint. less chance for bleeding onto the lenses.

since this is plastic, what kind of paint should i be using? polycarbonate? stuff from home depot? i've never done much painting except for my RC cars where you paint the inside of the body so when you crash it doesnt come off on the outside :P

I only sprayed them with clear, so technically the original finish is showing through... I guess.

Really, painting them would probably be easier :lol:.

the black will NOT bleed through, I have done 4 sets of those lights- trust me it wont bleed through. If you are going to spray clear just spray black

I took masking tape to the lenses and hit it with black... looks very fresh... I even went and tinted the lenses for a blacked out look.. Looked good but decieded against it. For safety reasons.

because you cant spray straight black over the lenses and have it come out good, you have to spray something that is translucent, a good rattle can product is VHT niteshades

^^^Rustoleum also has a Lense tint spray. I'm curious how it is compared to the Niteshades since that's all I've ever used.

I buffed my centerpiece with 3M's kit. It was 'moderately' faded, not gray, but not black. It made it shine, but you can still see the tiny groves/cracks if you look really hard...

My old boss gave me a huge roll of tint.. But the problem was every 6 inches it was creased. I figured I can try to black out my my tails to see ow it comes out.. Looked really hot. But durring the day the brake lights were very weak. And ripped off the tint..

I myself would never use the spray can of tint just because once you spray it its there and not coming off easily. Thas just me tho.

use the VHT from the rear and it looks great, you can do that pretty easily to s4's, looks very stockish

I know a few members who have baked their s4 tail lights. Something about heating it to separate the moldings, then they look like ridiculously bright s5 tail lights.

sand it paint it clear it and it will be good

Doesn't work that way. The lenses are apart of black outer piece and the rear housing seperates from that. I would love to replicate these someday

my original s4 lights I polished the lenses, then VHT from the backside, and refinished the black, they looked like they came from factory, not enough tint to be bothered or not be safe and just enough to be custom

http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/322-1/9c3de87f7a06.jpg


http://robx-7.nopistons.com/d/2214-1/rvsp%20008.jpg

WOW...those look bad ass!!

Does anyone have any more info on the red and white only s4 tails? those would make rocking s4 lights awesome! :egrin:

on my first set of lights i did(made S4s into 10AEs) i used a gloss black paint and painted where the bulb sat but left the lens factory color it looked realy good

http://www.gtfactory.jp/cms/e107_fil...3_p1010148.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1296/...80f8d8.jpg?v=0
http://www.gtfactory.jp/cms/e107_fil..._FT233_mmm.jpg
get em glossy looks good

Seeing those makes me wanna keep my S4 lights on my GXL. :nod:

yeah they look sexy when in they are in good condition and polished to a mad shine
s5 wouldnt look good on that car imo

how high of a grit sand paper do you reccomend to go to? 2000 grit? also how do you pull them out? i pulled down the carpet to try and get a better look but i only saw one screw

incase you were wondering what it would look like to just clean, mask the lenses, and spray a few coats each of semi gloss and clear coat, then i just went out and took pics of my tail lights. i did this a few months back and they seem to be holding up pretty well. better than i expected for a half ass $10 job.
next time i do this, i will be sure to sand it down to get a more smooth surface, but at the time i didnt care. anything was better than what they looked like, and i was busy and broke.

please excuse the dirty car and the bird, im sure he didnt mean to take a dump on my tail light.

I think there is something like 9 screws holding them on there? not sure it's 9 exactly but pretty close. Feel around with your hands and you'll find em!:icon_tup:

Those look way better than my car! I just rattle canned the center section around the liscence plate and it came out good.

Yea those are definitely worth considering before buying s5 lights. The first thing I did was buy s5 lights wen I got my s4. Sold the s4's recently looking like junk for like 50 bucks.