Have you ever been blinded at night by the brake lights from a new car in front of you? Have you ever followed an unrestored, 40-year-old car under a bright sun and couldn't even tell when (or if) the brake lights were on? Are they making new cars with more powerful brake lights, or did people have better eyesight in the old days?
In reality, they're not getting brighter, and we're not getting blinder. It's simply because new cars have clean, clear taillights. But we can get the same effect from our old cars by restoring the old ones.
After removing the taillight...
After removing the taillight assemblies from the car, the first step in the disassembly was to pry off the old crusty gaskets. Oddly, one of the original taillights had the gaskets glued in place, making the job just that much more fun.
The restoration process is simple, straightforward, can be done without any special tools for very little expenditure (assuming you don't have to replace any parts), and completed in an afternoon. We removed the taillight assemblies, tore them down to the individual parts, replaced the broken stuff, cleaned everything, refinished everything, and then reassembled them.
Polishing the taillight lenses took the most time because we did it by hand instead of using power tools (we'll know better next time!). The only special tool we used was a beadblaster, but that cleanup could have been done with old-fashioned Scotch-Brite, sandpaper, and/or steel wool.
Follow along with the pictures and captions, and we'll show you how to renew and brighten your old taillights. In the end, you'll be able to blast red photons with the best of them.