Blacking out the taillights

Farls

Story.....I've got myself a sweet little nissan 100NX and i want to black out the rear lights....problem is i don't want to black them out completely i want to leave wee circles over the bits that i want to see kind of like Ferrari lights at the back if you know what i mean (i'd post a pic but im not on my home pc at the mo) Anyways i have pics of this done but i dont know how its done it can't be a conversion kit cuz i've looked everywhere for one so i'm reckoning there must be a handy enuff DIY way of doing this?...any help at all would be great

cheers Farlz

the evil belly

if it's a spray over you could try masking tape. just cover the area you don't want sprayed and peel off after. there's probably a proper way of doing it. you could take it to a body shop along with the pic and ask them to do it

Farls

True, but i prefer to do this kind of thing myself, i find the more things you do on the car yourself the more you appreciate it...thus you driver with more care and attention because your proud of your work!....spraying it with black spray is all i can come up with at the moment myself but i'll wait a few days and see if anyone here has any better ideas...cheers tho

Farlz

seamus

Is it legal? Can't imagine it's very safe.........

the evil belly

sure it's legal as long as you can see when the lights come on. blacken lights come as standard on either the fiat brava or bravo or both(i'm not a fiat person)

Hellrazer

Farls if its the same thing Im thinking about-Leaving a small circle where the bulb is located so that you can still see the light,then the easiest way to do it is to put vaseline on the part that you dont want painted ie. the circle around the bulb.
The paint wont stick to vaseline and will wipe off when the paint has dried on the rest of the lamp.You can also do intricate shapes etc in the paint if you are painting somewhere else like a door.
Btw its not illegal if you can still see the different colours of the lights ie red for a stop light,orange for an indicator etc.
Its omly illegal if you use different coloured bulbs in the indicator/stop lights like blue or green which seem to be fairly common at the minute.

Farls

Hellraizer...u is the man!!!....thats excactly what im on about...not blacking them out completely just making circles around the bulbs....which in my opinion looks lethal if done right. I'll try the trick with the vaseline on the sisters lights this weekend to see if it works *s****** and if it does i'll do it on my own. Btw...is there any special type of spray paint i should use?

Farlz

Hellrazer

The paint you need is window-tint paint(Hard to come by)Its slightly transparent so you dont loose all of the light coming from the lamps.
As well as that if you F**k up it will come off quite easy without any damage to the lamp.
If you cant get that paint use any of the paints listed for tinting lights--Most of the good motor factors keep a stock of it.

Farls

Cool stuff then, i'll go in search of the paint this evening all going well im finished today at half 3. See when i'm putting on the vaseline do i dob it on or just a light glaze?...altho if the paints easy enuff to take off i can take a few goes at it if things don't goto plan to start off.....cheers big time

Farlz

Farls

I got the proper taillight tint paint today and i've put on around 8 coats now and everything is black but when you turn a light on you can see it thru the paint....which looks kind of ugly at night so i'm going to use normal black spray paint in the morning and see if it covers it out completely....vaseline works a treat btw

Farlz

Silverfish

Hmmmm......hope your car isn't going for the NCT anytime soon then.......


And my sympathies going out to all those people driving behind you at night with only a wee red dot to point out you've stopped....

I nearly rear-ended some happy git who had blacked out all but a tiny portion of his taillights.....

I then saw the clown get a belt of some less fortunate motorist who didn't see he was stopped.

Farls

I have the lights done now and their more than big enuff to see, if you can't see them from a good half mile away then you have no right to be on the road.

I'll post a picture of before and afters as soon as i get home to show what a difference they make

Farlz