99 Tail Lights
 

hey ever1 i just converted my tail lights thinks to a guy on this forum. he gave me a site that told me how to do it well i got it done and i got a picture to show you guys

tell me what you think

Nice job man, those looks sweet! How much was for the materials? $10?

lol i used stuff i had laying around the house i didnt spend a dime
i used 4 paper plates a razor out of a shaving razor spray paint i had to fix my bumper hair dryer and screw driving lol got to get cerative i just lost my job but still any mod i can do to my car for free im all about it

mad phat, what's the URL for that guide again? I've read one but I'm not sure if it's the one you did.

http://www.iluvmyrx7.com/How-To_s/how-to_s.htm
this is the site it has a few outher things as well

well id ont know what happened to the site it was there 2 days ago

i did it to mine to. i love em. yours look good too:)

hell yeah those look good, I might have to help a few of my friends do theirs.

looks sweet. How long did the whole process take you? im thinking about doing mine soon...was it difficult?

jsut took about 3 hours wouldnt take that long with the right stuff
its pretty easy

It's about 4 hrs, mainly bc the assembly is hard to take apart with all the silicon around the lens cover. Painting the inside lens take a little time too bc you need to put at least 4 coats of paint w/ 10 min in between coats.

Be careful not to burn your smoked lens and your carpet with the heat gun. Keep the heat gun pointing to the back of the light assembly, away from the smoken lens.

The instruction doesn't say about how to remove the lights from your car. To do so, you need to push the lights towards the sides of the car, parallel to the ground. Do not pull the lights upward or you'll break fasteners behind the lights.

It's a great mod. I've always hated the rectangular lights. They look so outdated.

Dude,

The Lights look great..
I want to do it NOW.

That WEB site isn't working..
When you click the exterior Mods,
IT comes up as a errror..

IF it isn't to much trouble how did you do it???

recently I played with my rear lights, becaues water
was getting in them.. I took off the lights,
and Unscrewed like 6 screws on the back of the
assembly.. Then TRIED to take it apart.
BUT THE THING Wouldnt BUDGE...

I didn't want to force it and break something
SO I just put it back together..

So how you Take that thing apart????

I got an idea of how you guys do it..

Take it apart. Get circle templated, place them against
the rear part of the lights and spray paint around them..

HOw close am I???

Thanks.

You are close, whiterxseven. After u take out the screws, use a heat gun to heat up the edges of the assembly. Heat the back side of the assembly, not the smoke lens or you'll burn those lens. If any plastic starts to shine, it's getting too hot so move the heat gun around.

Use a screw driver or a stick to penetrate between the lens and the backside of the assembly. Re-heat the assembly and slide the screw driver to open up the assembly apart.

You then take out the inner lens (orange and red). Take contact paper w/ circle cutouts. Place the circle cutout on the lense and paint over the range and red lens. Peel the contact paper circle cutouts carefully.

Place the orange and red lens back and heat up the silicon again to reseal the assembly. Use some more clear silicon to ensure proper seal, or else water or moisture will seep into the light assembly.

Hope that helps! I've done a few dozens sets now.

i just used a hair dryer
and to make the circles i took 3 cups for my house
you will want to make the turn light just a lttle bit smaller then the breaks
they call for 80mm for the breaks and 75 for the turn
i have no clue what i got but just use what ever you think looks good but take your time you only for one shot at it

I definitely like that round tail light look better! Here's a link to the same thing that i saved to my comp. THe author did a nice job with it.
http://www.jsott.com/rx-7/lights/index.html

they look like the real ones

If you mess up the spaypainting is there any way to remove it and salvage your lights?

Anywho since this involves making the '99 spec, who wants to be the entrepreneur and make a rotary shaped light? Hey it's just an oblong triangle. I wonder how that will look. I did a quick paintshop job to show you guys what I mean. I think it looks rather bad ass. Of course I dunno what to do about the turn signals, but hey, one step at a time here ;).

that looks sweet. I might hafta be the guinnea pig. If is i was gonna do it,i would probably use an exhaust gasket as a template since its shaped pretty much the same as a rotor, but im kinda nervous bout it. But now u got me thinking. You could basically put anything in your tail lights like the letters " RX7" or "YOU" and "SUCK" or anything you want to. Damn, i still like the rotor idea, but what do u think should be for the turn signals??

Yeah I wasn't sure of the shape of the turn lights myself, but here is one with them added. It's a sorta quarter of a circle shapt that is more like a slice of a pie than anything else. That's just the best overall shape IMO for this setup since it conforms around the outer edge of the light and then makes a sharp due to a linear line that borders that outside triangle. Looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

EDIT: Now that I look at it, they look more like ice cream cones turned to the side. Incredibly sexy look IMO though. Love to see these done on someone's car or at the very least, some piece of plastic :D.

Bam Bam, make the sideways ice cream cones smaller since the turn signal is smaller than the brake lights. i would do it myself, but i dont have paint or photoshop here, and at school, i gotta crack my teachers password to get on the internet and i dont know what kind of firewalls they have.

ill be the first to say that all of those ideas will look similar to the photoshop job
i.e. look like shit, fucked up, hot ass, retarted, ridiculous....etc...

hey, at least it matches the Valentine 1.. :rofl:

Is there a way to have the lights blink in order from closest to center brake light all the way out to the end blinker? So it would look like they are "running"? i think that would be interesting...

I agree that the rotor-style lights look ridiculous.

for saying that, you no longer have an opinion, goodbye.

Heheh well guys to each their own, but! To say the least, if you particiated in the rumor thread about the 4th gen and saw some of the concept drawings down by our very own forum members, some of them drew pics with the rear light being shaped like rotors (that's how I thought of this idea). I think it was HedgeHog ;).

i just wired my lights up to where all three circles are on i dont have rear blinkers now but it looks cool

im going to change it back tomorow i think becouse i need my blinks but i was just messing around to see how it would look
and about changing the lights around thats a great idea i dont really like the rotors but it would be cool to have like rx7 or somthing like that
all you would have to do is go to a sticker shop and have them make you what you needed

i don't like the colors of the stock tail lights. I would like the brake lights to be a deep red and the turn signals to be a brighter yellow.

similar to this.
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~poss/FD6.JPG

Does anyone have any ideas on how i could do this, with minimal effort? :D

I just did my tailight conversion and I made the blinker red along with my brake lights. So now instead of 2 red lights and one amber, they are all red. I used Candy Apple Red translucent spray paint (u can get it at walmart for like $3). I did a light coat first, let it air dry for about 5 mins. Then went over it again very lightly. Keep repeating untill you have a dark red color. Use the same technique for any color you want...its very simple.

you colored bulbs.... Not painted of course...

Hey, RX7streetkid, did the hair dryer take a long time to melt the adhesive glue stuff? i want to use a hair dryer too, but i wanted to know how long it took for it to melt?

i didnt use colored bulbs or painted bulbs. I painted the acutal lens...

That will work too....

I was out of town and the IP changed - its back up.

no man it didnt take long at all
i dont know how good a heat gun would have done but i think you could even do it with out a hair dryer

can you say .. HALOWEEN PUMPKIN LIGHTS !!

YUCK !

Just got mine done 2 days ago. Looks really nice too. Kinda a PITA in my opinion...just the painting though. I'll post a pic when I get home. I used a heat gun and paint my dad had. Bought some lamenent contact paper(1.99), used a razor and went to work. Stayed up till 6:00am to finish them and put them back on my car. Put up a pic when I get home.

Theres something peaceful working on ur car at 5 in the morning. LOL!