Brighter bulbs for brake & tail lights?

[indiana dave]

Well, another brighter bulbs question...
My brake lights can hardly be seen in day light...
They are brand new bulbs & I've cleaned the connections.
Any suggestions?
Thanks, Lou for the suggestions on the instrument cluster lights.

[sar4497]

I bet the reflectors inside the housing are just dulled or covered with dust.

[GAboySVO]

Mine were the same way. If you really want to brighten them up so you don't get rear ended. Take of the lense and spray paint the interior of the light housing with a gloss white. It made a very noticable difference on mine. I wish I had take some before and after pictures.

I suppose you could use a bright aluminum spray paint as well. The high temp exhaust aluminum is the brightest that I have found without using industrial grade stuff. If you use this paint, you might want to put a clear coat over top of it. Aluminum paint leaves a powdery residue.

Just my 2 cents.

[svobud]

yeah .. I'm betting it's not your bulbs either. It's a common problem for the older tail light assembly. The silver paint has a tendency to wear/fall off.

Try taking your lens apart and check out the silver paint on the inside backing that helps applify reflection. repaint with any Bright silver or silver metalic, or chrome paint will work.

[svony]

A while back I was also unhappy with my tail lights and the illumination at night, so... I removed the lense and placed aluminum foil paper over the inside backing.

The difference was amazing, lights looked brand new day or night.

Just another idea...

[bigwingsaleen]

brighter idea!

I cleaned and repainted the inside of the taillights on the Saleen with chrome spray paint fron the autoparts store, installed standard NEW bulbs and the difference was amazing.

I thought about using bare metal foil like modelers use to resemble chrome but couldn't find any that was large enough to cover the area needed.

[indiana dave]

Well, I've painted my inside light reflectors with "chrome" paint. and I'm in the process of painting the gray part of the lens to match the rest of the trim on my car. I changed it all to a metallic charcoal gray, because the original looked too much like just faded black trim to me, even after repainting a lot of it. I've gotten a lot of compliments on the different, but almost factory look.

[indiana dave]

Son of a B@#$^&&*!!@#@!!

I cracked my drivers side taillight putting it back together!!! It looked so good too!
Guess I'll have to get another...
I'll check a couple guys locally, then maybe put a want ad on this site.
Man! This really bites!
I fealt like strangling myself.

[Mr. Pink]

what is the best way to remove and then re-assemble the lens?

[indiana dave]

After unbolting them from the car, they actually just snap apart. I was able to pull mine apart pretty easily. You may have to use a flat putty knife or something though. You could probably pull the lens off without taking the whole thing out of the car, but it might be more difficult.
I used a little bead of silicone around the seal when pushing them back together.
As I was snapping them back together, I used a little too much force, and cracked the lens.

[gbeaird]

Yep, you will definitely want to reseal everything after you get done with the cleanup/paint. The tail lenses on our 86 have been off at least once (the driver's side is just a plain Mustang piece). When getting the car ready to pass inspection, I had to replace a couple of bulbs. I was amazed at how dusty things were back there. Just wiping the dust off the bulbs made a world of difference.

Don't forget to clean the contacts and put a little dielectric grease on both the contacts and the bulb base before reassembling. It seemed to help a bit in my case.

Gene Beaird
86 2R SVO
Pearland, Texas