Well I have one of my tail lights done. Bought them Sunday at a swap meet. Doing this set black to see how they look on the car. Cleaned them with a wire wheel. Sandblasted the rusty areas. Etch primer,then Aluminum paint,then 2 coats of SEM clear chip guard. The stuff is bullet proof. The bright trim got scuffed real good with red scotchbrite. 4 coats of SEM trim black. It adheres very well and stands up to UV. Polished the lens with compounds and a small buffer wheel. Finished them with a coat of paint seal. I set out just to spray them black to see how they looked on the car. Got a bit carried away and now they're nicer than the good set on the car. LOL. I guess I'll put the black ones on and recondition my brite ones as well. BEFORE AFTER
Very nice!! That treatment would look good on tarnished headlight bezels and hood lip with a black grill.
That looks GREAT!!! How would you redo them in silver...just silver paint? Or rechrome? I have a set of spraypainted black bobcats I need to work on.
The lens is easy. A small wool wheel to fit a drill or die grinder. Medium compound all the way down to fine and then a paint seal to finish. I started doing headlamps at work years ago when the plastic lenses started deteriorating. I use the small buffer wheel and depending on how bad they are even wet sand them. A scotchbrite pad with a fine compound works as well if needed then go to the wheel with compounds. You can buy head lamp resto kits know with the buffing wheel and compounds as a kit. I charge .5 to 1.0 hour at work depending how bad they are. I can make money on them as an upsell on a work order and the customer gets back head lamps that actually work. I do them on safety inspections quite often. Saves the customer buying housings and I make some extra hours. I get a lot of customers calling back amazed at how bad the head lights really were. An occasional coat of wax and they stand up pretty good.
I used the chip guard on the lamp plate with the studs in it over top of the Aluminum paint. Figured it would reflect the light of the bulb a bit better. SEM chip guard is just a high end clear gravel guard type paint. I did the under side of my rockers with it. It goes on very nice, dries crystal clear and is very hard. Resists all those nasty rocks and debris off the road.
Its easy to go from brite to black. Not so easy to go back to brite. IF they used to be brite you can strip them chemically. Luckily they arent chrome from the factory so you should be able to polish them back up but it wouldnt be easy. I assume Bobcat lights are the same metal as ours.
Thanks guys. Hopefully get the other one done tomorrow or Monday depending how busy I am at work. Makes for a nice little filler between jobs or waiting for OK on work.
I forgot a little thing. I also polished the inside of the back up lense as well. It turned out nice and clear.
