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Making the best taillights...

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Old 06-10-2004, 10:16 AM
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Making the best taillights...

Im working on the best set of stock style tail lights anyone on these boards has seen to date, IMO, too bad they wont be done till probably the end of this year oh well, who wants to see pics so far ?
Old 06-10-2004, 10:17 AM
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me considering your id on here they could be interesting
Old 06-10-2004, 10:29 AM
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Re: Making the best taillights...

Originally posted by Z28*****
Im working on the best set of stock style tail lights anyone on these boards has seen to date, IMO, too bad they wont be done till probably the end of this year oh well, who wants to see pics so far ?
EDIT: Going to change my post before anyone responds. These are made by TheGreatJ he fabbed them up for his car and look freaking amazing. If you can top this ill be impressed but i doubt you can. They are a set of LED tails in the stock housing.

Last edited by 19doug90; 06-10-2004 at 10:32 AM.
Old 06-10-2004, 10:32 AM
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Hmm, odd i thought of doing that, but im not really referring to when they are lit up, just on the car and looking stunning, not to mention thats not a "stock" light, im just saying they *should* appear better than new GM ones.

Phantom: Oddly enough i do have plans for a slight variation, which will be "clear taillights" man everyones gonna rant and complain, then go "oh those dont look bad at all"

Heres some pics of the stock set progress.
Attached Thumbnails Making the best taillights...-00_00000.jpg  
Old 06-10-2004, 10:33 AM
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2.
Attached Thumbnails Making the best taillights...-00_00001.jpg  
Old 06-10-2004, 10:33 AM
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And for the 3rd.
Attached Thumbnails Making the best taillights...-00_00002.jpg  
Old 06-10-2004, 10:35 AM
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Doug, those are nice, however, as I said im going for stock with these, not to mention I doubt those LED deals look trick when not lit, im going for something that will likely only be noticed by diehard 3rd gen people and their true beauty will probably not capture in images well.
Old 06-10-2004, 10:39 AM
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so what exactly are you doing with the taillights? Just working on them so they look better than brand new?
Old 06-10-2004, 10:42 AM
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Yeah, pretty much with this set, it will take a while to get them done cause i dont have the extra $ for the materials I need to complete them right now, however the end result i believe will be quite nice. And then there will be the clear set
Old 06-10-2004, 10:53 AM
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cool, for the clear set are you going to use stock lenses and modify them or completely make something up? Can wait to see the finished products
Old 06-10-2004, 10:56 AM
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from the compound on the one it looks like there's alot of rubbing going on.

Old 06-10-2004, 10:57 AM
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Originally posted by Kandied91z
from the compound on the one it looks like there's alot of rubbing going on.

Oddly enough, thats not compound, its just crap on the areas of the light I havent touched, but yes theres a good bit of labor going into them
Old 06-10-2004, 11:27 AM
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The LED tail lights look ok to me, but it's nothing I'd want on my car. If it was a tighter grouping like the new caddy tail lights, and it's behind the stock lense so you don't notice it with the lights off, then I think I'd start drooling.
Old 06-10-2004, 12:17 PM
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Originally posted by Jim85IROC
The LED tail lights look ok to me, but it's nothing I'd want on my car. If it was a tighter grouping like the new caddy tail lights, and it's behind the stock lense so you don't notice it with the lights off, then I think I'd start drooling.
i would even be happy with the grouping he has now.... if it was behind the lense so it looked stock with the lights out.
Old 06-10-2004, 02:34 PM
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Originally posted by Jim85IROC
The LED tail lights look ok to me, but it's nothing I'd want on my car. If it was a tighter grouping like the new caddy tail lights, and it's behind the stock lense so you don't notice it with the lights off, then I think I'd start drooling.
Yeah, it's an interesting concept and looks well done, but looks a little bit too much like my four year old's light-brite.
Old 06-10-2004, 06:00 PM
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Unlit.
Attached Thumbnails Making the best taillights...-led-tails.jpg  
Old 06-10-2004, 06:05 PM
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Lit.
Attached Thumbnails Making the best taillights...-brakes_close.jpg  
Old 06-10-2004, 06:08 PM
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that looks alrite, but why do you have screws in the blackout, that ruins it imo
Old 06-10-2004, 06:11 PM
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Better than having them stolen after 2 weeks. That's what happened to my first set.
Old 06-10-2004, 06:14 PM
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i dont know about those screws, they actually dont look that bad for some reason. what if you painted the heads of the screws black. but i love those tail lights, have you ever done anything like that for a trans am .
Old 06-10-2004, 11:27 PM
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Originally posted by 1986CamaroSC
that looks alrite, but why do you have screws in the blackout, that ruins it imo
yes true, but i screwed mineine the top and you cant steal them either
Old 06-11-2004, 12:50 AM
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That's pretty cool, guys! It's kinda funny, I was daydreaming a bit at work today about a similar setup, trying to figure out some way to customize the taillights. Just picked up a black '88 'vert for the wife the other day, and the previous owner spray painted the outside of the lenses black to try for a "black out" look! Needless to say, you can barely see the brake lights and turn signals in the daytime, and that is the first item on my "to fix" list, Lol! Going on my weekly junkyard tour tomorrow, will probably snag a taillight set or two to fiddle with.

I applaud you guys who like to create stuff from scratch..... always cool to see folks with original ideas and one of a kind mods.
Old 06-11-2004, 01:33 AM
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Yeah I spray painted my taillights black but I did jusy enough that when the lights are on they still show black. I do like the LEDs but I think they would look better inside the light housing instead of outside like that. just my opinion.
Old 06-11-2004, 03:24 AM
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Wanna see some crazy third-gen taillights? Check out this dude's page, scroll down towards the bottom.......

http://www.sounddomain.com/id/doneup83camaro
Old 06-11-2004, 08:01 AM
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Originally posted by Charlie's87
Wanna see some crazy third-gen taillights? Check out this dude's page, scroll down towards the bottom.......

http://www.sounddomain.com/id/doneup83camaro
GAAAH I could've gone the rest of the year without seeing that car again. I had almost forgotten about it. :: twitch ::

Doug, the taillights are really neat.

Z28*****.. maybe I'm missing something... but I'm not really seeing what you're doing to those lights that makes it any more spectacular than other sets of polished taillights I see on this board. Perhaps you can enlighten me?
Old 06-11-2004, 09:09 AM
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has anyoen gone threw all of the cleanign and prep work, and thought about puting a few layers of clearcoat over them? is this a dumb idea or would it work like im thinking it would? last longer, easier to clean, and shinier then ****
Old 06-11-2004, 10:50 AM
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Wanna see some crazy third-gen taillights? Check out this dude's page, scroll down towards the bottom.......


man why do ppl do that to there Third generation Camaros, ahhhh
Old 06-11-2004, 11:28 AM
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Hmmm my set should be done soon ... I'm using LED's too, but I changed the confifuration of the lights (used the stock housings).
Old 06-11-2004, 01:33 PM
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Originally posted by FyreLance
GAAAH I could've gone the rest of the year without seeing that car again. I had almost forgotten about it. :: twitch ::

Doug, the taillights are really neat.

Z28*****.. maybe I'm missing something... but I'm not really seeing what you're doing to those lights that makes it any more spectacular than other sets of polished taillights I see on this board. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

That part will come later so far i'd say they're coming along as planned, i've also made a little bit of progress on my "clear lights"
Old 06-11-2004, 02:05 PM
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Originally posted by FyreLance
[B]GAAAH I could've gone the rest of the year without seeing that car again. I had almost forgotten about it. :: twitch ::B]
I'm in the same boat. Had alllmost completly forgotten about those things *shudder* ya no one needs to look at that
Old 10-28-2004, 10:37 PM
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Any update???
Old 10-29-2004, 03:59 AM
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I got updates but no pics yet sorry. I'm making two different styles of taillights, both using the stock 91-92 enclosures, and both using LED's. The first one has the ambers and two bottom reverse portions painted red on both sides (so there is only 1 reverse light up at the top on each side). The enclosures have been gutted and the configurations of the lights have been changed with the LED's. I used LED's that were closer together (compared to that other pic). They now light up in circles like a Nissan Skyline, yet the enclosures still almost look stock externally. The second set is my crazy set, went at it with the knife. So far 3 sets of cheap 91-92 taillights have been used to complete them (well, almost). The only part I have not been able to complete are the edges where the reflectors wrap around. Again the shape of the enclosure is stock, however the reflectors have been re-arranged to a new style. I wanted to use sequential turn signals, so the middle portion of the lights have been converted to clear all the way across. The tops and bottoms of the lights are red. This set had also been gutted and will be using LED's for the lights. This set will appear somewhat stock when lit, but with sequential turnsignals instead..
Old 10-29-2004, 05:19 AM
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would you be interested in selling led conversions after you complete your set?
Old 10-29-2004, 08:38 AM
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No sorry these are for my cars. Just goto your local yard and get a set for cheap. No shame in hacking them up. Search the internet and you'll find out how to setup the LED's.
Old 10-18-2006, 12:14 AM
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lets just resurect an uber old thread...cause I wanna hear how all this stuf panned put!

Crazy - did you ever finish the tailights?
Old 10-18-2006, 12:26 AM
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Those would be cool but it looks like you'd HAVE to have blackouts for them to not look tacky, because of the bulbs protruding out of the lenses...as mentioned above they kinda remind me of a Brite-Lite. If the bulbs were INSIDE the lense so you could go without blackouts, that'd be something worth producing and making profit off of
Old 10-20-2006, 11:36 AM
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Originally Posted by fenton06
lets just resurect an uber old thread...cause I wanna hear how all this stuf panned put!

Crazy - did you ever finish the tailights?
where are these tailights
Old 10-20-2006, 08:40 PM
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i like how zrated83's tails look. without the amber color but those LED's are pretty cool too
Old 10-21-2006, 09:01 AM
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This project was put at the bottom of my list so not much has been done since my last post. The "crazy set" is still unfinished, but I was planning to finish them sometime soon. The car I want to use them on has been down for some work for a while so wasn't really in a rush. Here's an older picture of that first set I was talking about, sorry no pics of it when it lights up. After a while I decided the circular LED setup didnt look right on these taillights because of the grids in between the reflectors. Boo hoo!! hahahahaha

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