Cleared tail lights

So, i got a broken tail light for dirt cheep and had been thinking testing this for the longest time. I was just too chicken sh1t to crack the lenses up till now. So What do you think. I just might do it to the ones on the car. My origonal thought was to do a LED retrofit, but I am kinda liking the way it will look when i get colored bulbs in it.

 

Not sure how it would really look on anything other than a BSP sedan.

 

The bigest PITA was getting the dremel out and cutting the lense off. If there is a better way to do it, that is the only way I found how, I would ahve done this ages ago.

id unno man!!

 

its cool!!

 

but maybe it just too clear!!

On a silver or white sedan that could look pretty good!

 

You sedan owners have been yelling at HKC-Speed for a year now looking for different, JDM-esque tail lights for sedans (we wagon guys get all the cool options). This might convince people to make their own!

i dont think it looks bad at all.

i dont think it looks bad at all.

looks better than your avatar

 

+1 on looking good on a light car

Rice!

Just thought that this might look good with some tint on a darker color sedan.

^ +1 for tint

speaking of rice

eh.. its OHKAY............. but I dunno, clear tails are so.. 1999.... so are "altezzas/euroclears"

 

I think the stockers look just fine.. they'd be nicer with a dark tint or maybe an led conversion or something but.. I dunno clear lense is "passe"

I think that it looks very good.

I'd like to see some pictures of it on your car leggtnut. I might do this when I clear my headlights...

Working on it. The one I did was a test unit. I got it dirt cheep because it was broken. I may try and get the materials I need to do the ones on the car. but I was contimplating a test fit before I did that. If I do, Will take some pics and post them. We will see how the weekend goes.

OK, did a test fit on the car. Dam that looks good to me. Will be doing this once I can with the real lights.

 

The lense hasn't been re-attached, so there is a slight gap in the pictures.

wow. I am impressed. i wonder what it looks like out in the sun though?

 

Good job though. i like it. especially on the lighter colored legacys.

LED tails! im in!!

wow pretty nice. LEDs would be the icing on the cake.

I would agree. I just need to find a good source for the LED's for an affordable price. I was looking at www.superbrightleds.com. But don't know of another source. I have a possible local source for LED's and maby Fry's, but i would have to make the LED array's that way because they mostly only sell the LED's themselves.

Nice, props for doing something new/different.

Ok, got the test unit onto the car with lights in it. I have to admit that the break light doesn't look right, but wasn't able to find a 7443 red light today. So, since the bulb is a extra, I painted it with some Rose Red. Yes it is a little dark, but it gets the job done to see what it should look like. But I did find a 7440A amber light for the turn signal.

Wow! Looks pretty dang good!

I used to have clear taillights on one of my previous vehicles. One thought is that you are trynig to re-invent the wheel by trying to bring colored bulbs into this. Red is one of the hardest colors to use in a clear film because it fades due to sunlight and general use. As such within a few weeks of having a red bulb you wind up with pink and spots of sickly yellow/white in the lense.

 

Using LEDs solves this proble, however unless you are using arrays (or star LEDs that are spring loaded which will solve the problem I'm about to detail) you wind up facing a different issue, one of severley isolated beam displacement. I often had people pull uip beside me when using rear facing LEDs in my clear taillights that would try to inform me that I had no bulbs/taillights. When you were directly behind the vehicle you could see a quarter sized red dot that would come on to signal a stop.

 

Modern LED bulbs such as ledtronics products feature multidirectional LEDs that take advantage of the housing, but you only see any real benefit from this at night when there is no excess light to drown the LED's output in the lense.

 

The point I'm trying to make, no matter how cool they might look when not in use, clear tails are a huge heap of trouble with risks like rearenders from insufficient light and/or excess expenses from custom bulbs and LED assemblies.

 

a few resources if you choose to take this route anyway however:

 

http://www.ledtronics.com

 

http://www.radiantz.com

the amber turn signal looks great, but the brake light does need some work. Maybe do some red film on the bottom for the brake light only, or just a ton of LEDs.

Looks pretty nice. ++

 

It just occurred to me that I have no idea which lights light up in the tails when you brake, signal etc. Just never noticed... lol