'new' rear lights.

after a lot of consideration about what to do with my rear lights, ive gone for, very simply, using oe red ones to replace the lower set.

piccy

i think this very simple mod has brought the lights a little more up to date.

the main reason ive gone for this route instaed of LED rears, either pfoe's or coupedetaile ones is i wanterd to keep as much of an OE look as possible.

not quite as simple as swapping them over though, as the lower set have two bulbs whereas the top set has only one, meaning the lenses had to be carefully removed and stuck on the old bulb holder.

i dont have a before pic unfortuantley, but im sure you all know what standard ones look like!

using orange indicator bulbs i removed from a mondeo at the local scrappy sorted out the issue of the indicators being the wrong colour, although they are now a deeper shade of orange than they were before, so ive kept the originals for MOT time, the only other issue is now having no reverse light, but i can live with that, and may even make some kind of small LED reverse thing, if i can be bothered!

i think its a nice and subtle mod (but obviously im a bit biased!)

any opinions?

alex

i think that looks cool.... i have been thinking what i can do alonf the lines of replacing the rear lights without going down the LED route, might do the LED way when i have the cash...

i bought some carbon fibre rear lights for my 51 plate celica, never had reverse on them, but had a clear lense, put orange bulbs in for indiactors, drilled a hole on the casing and put a clear bulb in the back for reverse looked spot on even tho they were ran through the same lense

Very nice Alex

think im going to have to try some yellow LED bulbs for the indicators as they are a very reddish colour at the moment, i did think about trying to cut the orange semicircle of the old lenses out and placing them behind the red lenses to see if it helps.

do you need a reverse light for the MOT???

U need a reverse light yes and a fog light.

Personally, i can see you've put some work into it, but i dont like it.

Sorry.

Ross

/\ Fog light is still there in the standard place, so thats ok, but guess i'll be keeping the original reverse for the mot then, lol

I thought a reverse light isn't required for an MOT? Sure I'd read that on here a few times before.

The mod looks really nice though. And I'd say a pale yellow lamp, will probably give the correct orange indicator glow you're looking for.

I think that looks really nice mate.

I bought some rear lights from Carlt ages ago to try and do the same mod, but I couldn;t get the red lens off without breaking the lenses.

How do you do it?

I was going to buy some lens Red Spray and Spray the indicator sections on the originals and leave the reverse sectino clear, but I reckon this looks better.

No you dont need a reverse light for the MOT, I haven't had one for 2 years.

Looks great - I'm definitely going to be doing this mod in the near future. Perfect OEM+ looks.

You've made the decision for me!

Ads

i did this some time ago but i done it the easy way and got rid of the reverse light http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g45/cowboykarl/patsphotos005-8-1.jpg
also mad car man done it the fully legel way and fitted reverse were the foglight is and put a red bulb,and as above no need for reverse light on mot.

I did what Cowboy mentioned above with the 2 indicator/reverse lenses on the bottom and LED bulbs in the appropriate lights:-

Two reverse lenses

Rear-fog LED bulb

Reverse LED bulb

Baz

I did the opposite Baz and fitted 2 rear fog lights

Mine have been sprayed all red, but they still light up exactly the same colours as before, just look red when not lit.

http://s181.photobucket.com/albums/x6/mattsubc/lights/

yep, ive gone for yellow led indicator bulbs, from my primary school knowledge of primary colours red + yellow = orange

for a quicky how to:

buy a whole set of lights to play with, then if you mess it up you can still drive round

using a junior hacksaw gently go around the small gap between the lens and bulb holder, just enough to remove all the adhesive, but without going all the way through.

then, at the 'bottom' of each lens, (marked by a small indent on the lens) in between the bulb holder and lens saw enough away with the hacksaw to get the tip of a small flat blade screwdriver in.

soak the edge of the lens, where it meets the bulb holder in autoglym or similar tar and glue remover, to get rid of any adhesive the hacksaw blade hasnt cleared, then after a few mins, starting at the bottom gently prise the lens and bulb holder apart.

swap the red lenses onto the holder for indicator and fog / reverse, stick with black mastick or similar, make sure its a watertight seal as well.

leave to dry.

thats about it. obviously, ten yer old weathered plastic can be a little brittle, so you do take the chances of a lens cracking, in fact one of mine had a small crack before id even started, just be careful and take your time.

the foglight has a special bit of lens inside the bulbholder, i guess to make the light more concentrated, a clever so and so may use two fog light ones and have fogs on both sides.

im thinking about using some of those little led bolts (in white) to hold my rear plate on and to act as reverse, if i can be bothered!!!!

im also tempted to try to fit a set of pfoe's led lights under some oe red lenses all round, for the best of both worlds, but i'll leave that one for a while