I was scraping off my old dried up gaskets....that taillight the lens sits on....looks like the gasket was glued to the housing...anybody know of a good substitute glue to use for my new gasket.
The gasket is not glued. Maybe somebody did it during the life of the car, but it did not come that way new. Just put the housing together. The compression of the whole assembly is all that is needed to hold the lens and gasket in position.
It sure looks original to me....that old brown glue ford used...the gasket marerial was dried up...it looked to have never been apart....but the compression like your saying should be plenty enough.
Over the years I have disassembled probably 50 sets of these taillights. Never had one with that brown glue in it. But again it is a Ford - never say never...........
i'd like to black out my tail light frame. how do you get them apart without breaking the lens or damaging the frame?
Remove the whole taillight assembly from the car. There are 6 nuts to remove from inside the trunk for this. Once off the car there are 6 or 8 (depends on year) phillips head screws and locking tabs to remove on the backing plate side. You need to gently pull off the foam to get at them. Once these are out the whole assembly just comes apart. You will have - bezel frame, lens, grey lens gasket, backing plate, and foam seal plus the nuts, screws and locking tabs.