ThreeOhFive

I'm hoping this will be a sticky :P

I posted last night asking a question about how you can make your old, high mileage tail lights look like they did the day your car rolled off the production line, but didn't get the answers I was looking for. Today I pulled the tail lights off of my Camaro and brought them home. I decided to only do one tonight to show a before/after.

This is what I did:
1. Filled up a bath tub with enough water to submerge the lamp fully.
2. Let the lamp sit in the tub submerged for about 30 minutes.
3. Added a mix of Simple Green cleaning product and RV Gel Cleaner to the water.
4. I poured some RV cleaner and water into the bulb holes in the tail lights and swished it around.
5. Violently shake the tail light side to side, swishing the water and cleaner around inside the lense.
6. Submerge the lamp in water again and repeat step 5 a few more times.
7. This step is optional, but I gave it a shot... find an old toothbrush and try to scrub any build up from condensation.
8. Drain the tub, fill it up with clean water.
9. Submerge the lamp in the water again, and move it around in the water to make sure that the soap gets washed out, as you don't want a haze left in the lense.
10. Grab a hose and spray the lamp, I did this just to make sure there was no soap left over.
11. Wait for it to dry. You can use a hair dryer to speed up the process. You tail light will most likely look cloudy and not much different for about an hour, this is condensation.
12. Get a plastic shiner and shine up the outside of the lamp.
13. Enjoy your amazing clean, brand new looking tail lights and pat yourself on the back for saving yourself hundreds of dollars over buying new tail lights!!!

This is the difference it made with mine! The top one is not cleaned, the bottom one is...

C-Titan

iTrader: (2)

Wow, they look pretty good! Nice work...

ThreeOhFive

Thanks! I think the biggest difference was in the reverse lights, but I've noticed the brake and signals look MUCH clearer, too.

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

Dang i am gonna do this to mine and then paint the amber red i was thinking of sanding them and just polishing but your way sounds much easier

ThreeOhFive

It is, I didn't even have to disassemble them! It takes very little time, sanding would be much harder to do! If you do try this, please post pics, I'd love to see how everyone else's turns out! After all, I think our tail lights need to look good... that's what 99% of the other cars on the road are going to see

SiCkRs

iTrader: (6)

Yea, sure but i am not gonna do this probably till april since that is when i am going to paint my car, also was the water hot or cold and also what is the rv gel cleaner and were can i find it

ThreeOhFive

I'd definitley start with cleaning them like I did, see where that gets you. We're painting our '92 also. Can't wait to put all this redone stuff on!
The products I used:

ShMaCk2004

i just ran mine with some never-dull. that ***** amazing