So I got a set of these, and they look nice and well made. But inside the box are 4 black "sticky rubber ropes" (not the technical name I'm sure), about the thickness of those sour ropes my kids like. I assume they are some kind of do-it-yourself gaskets, but before I install them I just wanted to see if anyone had any tips on where exactly they go....

Thanks,

 

Look on the back of the tail lights and there is a grove you lay them in.

 

it should be butyl. and it can be annoying as hell. and you use it to clean it off yourself. if that makes sense.

 

Same place the butyl is on the factory tails...

 

Thanks all. The groove was obvious once I really looked at the back of em - duhh. Oh and it didn't have factory tails, it had aftermarket "carbon/clear" tails when I bought it and I was wanting the cleaner look. Also didn't like that the turn signals were red.

Once I removed the other tails it looked like this car has had 3 or 4 sets of taillights on it, with the remains of all the different butyl ropes and foam gaskets back there. Or maybe someone was chasing a water leak at some point, although I see no evidence of that. Anyway I cleaned off the old stuff as best I could just scraping it, and laid the new butyl in the surrounding groove. I was gonna make sure any gap was at the bottom, for drainage, but there was enough extra that I got full coverage all the way around. You can really sense it "mooshing in" as you tighten the screws, so I'm guessing they are good and weathertight.

Got some new amber bulbs for the turn signals, and some neat little LEDs for the rear sidemarkers, which didn't even have bulbs in them before.