Editing Tinting Tail Lights

=Tinting=
Get yourself a litre bottle of Mineral Turpentine.
This does not affect the plastic at all!

With all screws and that useless strip of black plastic removed, soak the edges of the lens cover in turps.
Do this for half a day, putting more turps on the joins every hour or so.
This will make the joining goo very sticky and come away easier.

Get something thin and flat to pry the join away with.
I've found a putty scraper the best for this.
Work the flat edge and pry away the goo to separate the lense from the tail light body.
This step sounds simple but it is very difficult to do without chipping and cracking the plastic edges - use lots of turps!

Once it is separated, clean the goo off as best you can.
This will help the new sealer to stick.

Spray the INSIDE of the lense in HVT "Nite Shades" tinting paint.
It's recommended to spray it on the outside, but inside is better for looks.
The more you put on the darker it is.
The darker it is, the closer cops will look at your car!

Put some sort of sealer in the groove where the lens meets the rest of the rear light box.
I used "blue goo" which is a gasket sealer resistant to water (obviously), oils and other petrolium products.
It is also fairly flexible.
This is important as "super glue" will become brittle and crack when you go over your first decent bump.

Press the edges together as much as you can to get a good seal.
After a few hours I got some goo on my finger and ran it around the edge, wiping off the excess with a rag, to make sure that is was 100% sealed.

Leave over night to dry.

When replacing the lights, make sure all surfaces are free of any old adhesive.
Using Sikaflex (or similar) apply a layer to both surfaces, push the lights into position, and screw them back in place.

=Removing Tint=
This guide is for those of you who have gone a little overboard with Nite-Shades and would like to either remove the tint, or remove the tint and re-coat your lights.

==Why?==
To start off with, here is a picture of my lights. You'll see why I chose to do this:
[[File:TailTintRm01.jpg|640px|center|link=]]

Yes, far too much Nite-Shades on them. I knew that this would make my car more of a cop magnet than any other R31 with P plates, so I decided to strip the tint and re-do my lights. 

==With?==
Go and grab the following:

*1x bottle of metho (you won't need an entire bottle)
*1x empty ice cream container (or any container, doesn't matter)
*2x rags

[[File:TailTintRm02.jpg|640px|center|link=]]

Fill up your container with water, put a fair bit in because you'll want to make sure you get all the metho off. Take everything out to where your going to be working. Before you start, it's a good idea to open your boot. If you don't, you may accidentally get metho on your garnish, and it leaves a horrible mark that won't come off.

==How?==
Now, pour some metho onto one of your rags, and start rubbing away at the tail light. Use some elbow grease, it might take a little bit to get the tint off depending on how much you used. 

While I was doing this, I was stopping every 10 - 15 seconds, getting the other rag, dipping it into the water and washing the metho off my tail light and surrounding areas, just to try and minimize any damage the metho may be doing, and then going back to attack it with the metho again.

Not too long after you start, you should see something like this:

[[File:TailTintRm03.jpg|640px|center|link=]]

Note: If you leave the metho to dry, it will turn the Nite-Shades white where it has touched. Don't worry about this, it will still come off but try to be a quick as possible.

Continue rubbing and washing the light until you've got as much as possible off with the rags. It is a bit tricky to get into the grooves of the light with the rag, so improvise. I didn't bother with mine because I was re-coating them anyway, but I'm guessing a toothbrush or something similar coated in metho might do the job. 

Here's how my first light turned out:

{{2Image|img1=TailTintRm04.jpg|img2=TailTintRm05.jpg}}

Repeat the procedure for both tail lights and you should be done in no time  ;)
Mine took me about 20 - 30 mins to do both.

Here's my final product:

[[File:TailTintRm06.jpg|640px|center|link=]]

And that's how I removed Nite-Shades from my tail lights.
If you are re-coating, make sure the tail light is dry before you do so. 

=Contributors=
*31Ti
*Lupes
[[Category:Cosmetic]]