How 2: Tint Your Lights

[Bourkey]

I found this on another website as people where enquiring about tinting there lights like my indicators.follow these steps but you can change it to suit your starlet however you want.

Firstly sand the surface around the tape, using 800 grit sandpaper.THe light will not look clear when you sand but dont worry it will when finished

now your ready to tint. make sure you wipe the surface youve sanded clean with windex or a damp cloth. PATIENCE IS KEY HERE. you dont want it to drip, the spray is not like spraypaint, it is very thin and can run very easily, ruining your tint job.

in case you do ruin your tint job, laquer thinner can remove the tint easily. and you can try again.

i did 9-10 passes of tint spray per lens using about 3 light sprays from 16'' away. (the stuff smells pretty bad, stunk up my whole house pretty good, so do it in a well ventilated area.) again, be patient, you wont run out, i did all 3 plus the spoiler light with some left over.

this is how they looked.

after i removed the tape, i sanded the whole lens again ( yes including the tint, though very lightly on the tint) you want to rough up the lens area primarily so the clearcoat will go on and adhere to the whole lens very well.) again wipe the surface clean from particles, and it should look like this:

spray on the clearcoat, make sure you use enough clearcoat to make a good solid base for sanding and finishing the lights. so if in doubt, use more. hold at about 8-10 inches and you can spray the clear coat on a bit heavier than the tint spray, dont let it run though. little imperfections can be cleared up in the finishing/sanding of the lens.

here's a pic of clearcoated and back on the car:

here are the supplies needed.

blue magic plastic and plexiglass cleaner ( a rubbing compound might work as well but i wanted to be safe and this stuff promised an optical clear finish.)

1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper

a spray bottle with a few drops of dishwashing liquid.

now you take the 1500 grit sandpaper and wetsand the lenses. dont really grind at the clearcoat, you dont want to take it off, just enough to get rid of the roughness. be sure to follow up with 2000 grit sandpaper, and always keep the area wet! ( i did this on the car so i taped around the lenses) it might be a bit easier to do it off the car in some better light so you can see what your doing.

once your done sanding, clean the surface of particles again, and grab that magic blue! (at this point you might be freaking out because the lenses are not clear again and your wondering if you had just f**ed up) take a paper towel and rub that magic in!!!!!

everything will just start to look amazing and crystal clear. use some muscles to make sure you can really buff the compound into the small scratches made by the sandpaper. once done, it will look sexy like this....

Approximate time taken: 9 very careful hours.

adding more pictures after i tinted them darker a second time around, this time, my second time took only like 4 hours or so, mostly waiting for the spraypaint and tint spray to dry.

i also tinted the sidemarkers using the same procedure.