I ordered the JDM taillights for my 5.5 and want to paint the inside of the clear light red....what kind of pain should I use and how should I do it?

From the clear inside circle.....

To this:



This is a quick edit of how the lights would look!

 

maxpol, why do those lights look a little weird?

 

Cause they were edited on photoshop so I can see what the Black would look like with the red......


Now I need to know how to paint them.

 

people usually recommend this paint http://store.yahoo.com/streetbeatcus...andtailli.html i have some of it but havent gotten around to doing it yet.

 

Good call.....but I'll still wait for those who have done it....

 

My brother, UGAd13, did it to his 2k3. He used red tail light spray that he got on-line. He did a few coats over the amber and I think it came out really good. It looks to be the same brand as the one linked above, though different paint, with a picture of an Audi's tail lights painted red.

I'll send him this way so you can get better details.

 

In order to do that, is it required for you to pull the taillights apart or can you do it without aparting them?

 

This is how mine turned out. I might go back and add a few coats if I get bored one day.

use this:

Just take out the bulb and spray a bunch of light coats in to the housing, waiting a few minutes between each coat. It took me a couple of hours b/c I was playin some X-Box between coats.
If you want some more pics let me know.

 

maxpol, what are the "JDM" tail lights? are those just the black bezel ones that come on the 00-01 SE, or is it something else?

 

hey, those dont look bad at all....

 

I just used Testors Candy Apple Red. Mine turned out just fine. Though I really dislike the way they look now. I've turned to actually tinting the outside of the tail light a little bit to make them look smoked. Its going to be much harder to make the lights look good if the lense is clear. With the amber part it makes it so easy because you can mess up and its not going to show through as much.

Here is a pic of mine (grey car) and Woos his is the black one with the 5.5 taillights. You can kinda see the difference between tinted and not.



Before the tint:

 

I ordered what i linked you to and received the paint UGAd13 showed a pic of. Don't get confused

 

You may dislike them, and I bet people would consider the red/clear combo ricey, but it does look great on grey lustre and I'm sure on black too.

I see Polak's been drawing inspiration from Studman lately, that's good...

 

^^ I totally agree with the ricey part. I did it about 6 months ago cause I wanted to be different but now all anyone says is "nice car but loose the Altezzas". Its horrible I really feel it takes away from the look. I'm just waiting till Stillen comes out with the LED tails and go to work on those.

 

So this should work just fine???

If you have more pix can i see them?

And did you clear coat, then paint, then clearcoat, etc.

 

in the other painting taillights thread, they just said spray a few coats into the back of the light, and it should coat the inside of the lens...

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....ght=tail+paint

btw, what are you referring to when you say JDM tails?

 

No clear coat. The first pic is not that great, it was night time and in my garage. It looks a lot better in the sun. The second pic is with the turn signal.
And I don't think they look ricey at all. The clear altezzas you see on civics and other cars look completley different than the max tails.

 

I know it's different, but...
I painted mine... On the outside.
2 coats super black paint & 2 coats clearcoat.
You can kinda see them in my sig. They blend very well with the car's paint.

 

is there a place like an auto shop that will carry these paints?

I don't want to wait a week for the paint....

 

i would go with clear, not those on the ebay though

 

if you haven't already, go to the walmart on rt.46 and get the testors candy apple red TRANSLUCENT paint. It comes in a little hobby spray can.

Make sure it is translucent so light can still shine through.

That is what emax (i think first person to do these on a maxima) did and everyone who followed

 

Thanx....I will.

 

oh yeah, are you talking about the 'jdm' tails on ebay? if you did purchase those, don't red out everything...just red out the top half and keep the bottom half clear and use a red bulb in there.

but then that kinda looks like the 00-01 SE tails

 

I would really like to see how it would look painting the clear outter lense with the same paint match as the car itself. I think it might look hot cuz all u would see is the chrome ring and the red n yellow.

 

Yeah I bought those lights.....I think I will paint them both red because the bulbs will remain stock and if I buy red bulbs, THey will be pink.

 

Dont use the testors paint. Get the paint from the link shown above. Yahoo stores. Use the bulb spray or the tail light spray. Spray it inside in small amounts. It takes around 6-9 shots to get it right. It should look like this when finished:

 

MaximaPolak: I actually bought a set of the clear/chrome ones off EBay a long time ago. Painted both the top/bottom circles red. Didn't like it, so I got rid of it. All the pics you see of the full circle are 02-03 tails w/the amber part painted over. It looks very different when it's fully clear, and you apply red paint to it. I didn't like how it looked at all, so I sold it. Then again, I'm known to be picky...

 

Haha...that is so true, you are picky....

anyway...if it comes out light i will add more color and make them even darker (remeber, I have a dark theme going) and I'll use the stock bulbs...I'm not too picky....we'll see how it turns out...

Right now, ProCarParts is ****ing with me. They sent an invoice or something to UPS on September 23rd and UPS only says this.....UPS has received shipper's billing information electronically. Billing information received does not indicate shipment pickup or drop-off. Please contact the shipper for more details.

and so I've sent them 3 or 4 e-mails with no response.

 

[QUOTE=dblrr900]Dont use the testors paint. Get the paint from the link shown above. Yahoo stores. Use the bulb spray or the tail light spray. Spray it inside in small amounts. It takes around 6-9 shots to get it right. It should look like this when finished:

Why not testors?

 

Thing is, it's not the color that I didn't like. Also, since top/bottom is clear, it matched just fine. I went slow and put on thin coats. I didn't like it b/c of the edges where the paint will go. If you paint them, you'll see what I mean. Since I put my car in shows, it had to look good from up close, not just pics taken from 10ft. away, you know?

 

[QUOTE=ICULookN]It runs like a crack head away from the cops. One of my 02 tails got ruined because the spray ran and leaked into the housing.

 

I used the testor's, about 1-1/2 years ago, right after emax did it. This is how it turned out. Personally, I like it a lot better than the yellow. Mine needs a couple touch up sprays now. Just do 2 or 3 and let it chill for about 5-10 minutes. Repeat about 3 times. Light sprays so you don't get the runs. . . .

 

maximapol: just trade your tails with a member who has 00-01 SE tails. Make sure you switch harnesses as well.

 

I don't want those 2k1 lights......i want the black to be inside...and one of my tails is aftermarket OEM and so doesn't fit right......

 

I hope I never get that bored.

 

I think it would be hotter on white n red on a white car.

 

If you mean clear i think that would look to crappy.....

There would be one "slice" of the light and i personally think it would look stupid on chrome....