Remove night shades tint

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Kevin08

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I’ve seen videos of people using brake fluid, brake cleaner, and paint thinner to remove the spray tint off of tail lights. I will not try this because I know those chemicals will dissolve plastic. I did the passenger tail yesterday. The tint was faded out and to me just looked like crap.

I used the 3M method of plastic lense restoration but with more hand sanding. This tint kept gumming up the expensive 3” Velcro disc so I switched to hand until I removed all the tint, then finished it out with 800 and then 3000 trizact pad and compound. Of course later I watched a YouTube of a guy using denatured alcohol and removed but with a lot of elbow grease.

The tint made them look like an old cracked light with trash and mold settled in the bottom. I might get to the drivers side this afternoon. Headlights are really hazed and I might start on one of them. The battery life on the cordless 3” polisher really sucks, takes one and a half battery to finish one light. I thought of making a come to you business out of this, but not until I come up with a polisher that won’t die after one light. It’s 12V lithium 2Ah. I’d rather it be corded to a car battery I could recharge at home and do several cars a day.
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Aspen03

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Nightshades sucks to remove, generally because people overdo it and put 4 coats down to try and black out everything.

Sand/polish is about the best way imo. People don't tend to prep well when using the stuff, mainly because it's cheap, if they cared they'd use better product and prep. Mixing a black base with clear has 100x better effect and you get an amazing crimson glow when the lights are on. A car I purchased about 10 years ago was like this. It took me an entire day to get them back to stock so it could be right.

While the look was nice the brake lights were almost invisible in bright sun and I would end up on the wrong side of that if I ever got rear ended.

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ManUpOrShutUp

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Nice work. Look into Ryobi's 18V cordless line. Batteries go up to at least 9.0 Ah. Home Depot will be having their Ryobi days sale in/around May and Direct Tools Outlet (maker of Ryobi) has sales pretty much every holiday. Ryobi also makes a sequential charger that I believe can hold 6 batteries. Ryobi is DIY quality (vs pro), but it offers a good bang-for-the-buck, especially with the deep discounts you can get if you're patient.
 

Aspen03

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If its something you think you'd want to turn into business and you want a versatile polishers for some of the more odd shaped lenses the Rupes Ibrid is amazing. A friend ofine picked one up last year and being able to switch from rotary to orbit is slick. The size let's you get even the smallest or odd angled areas of a vehicle. Makes short work of B pillars. The battery life isn't terribly long but they rapid charge in about 20min. Run time is about a half hour. Having 3 you can cycle through continuously and still allow time for cool down between charges to maximize life expectancy. It can also run corded as well if you have power available.
 
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Kevin08

Kevin08

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The left one was so thick it had runs thick as a penny. Against my better judgment I decided to go extreme and use the brake cleaner others say to do. Well, it dissolved the bond between the red and clear lenses. The clear one sunk into the light bucket. I had to laugh seeing it. I wasn’t mad because I noticed at the same moment the reason the previous owner sprayed the tint on so thick. Apparently he was hiding several cracks in the bottom half of the red lense. So I’ll be replacing the whole tail light anyway.

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Trainmaster

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Junk yard replacement abound, or go to ebay. The OEM ones are a bit better than the knockoffs, even if they're used.

You're my hero, by the way.
 
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Kevin08

Kevin08

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Junk yard replacement abound, or go to ebay. The OEM ones are a bit better than the knockoffs, even if they're used.

You're my hero, by the way.

i wish there were some Gen III in the local yards.
 
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Kevin08

Kevin08

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Before
10736E53-144C-41F6-9D70-CEC24BE10405.jpeg

After
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It cleared but not happy with the end result.
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This is the worst stress cracking I’ve ever seen in a light. I wonder if someone had high watt bulbs in these. I stopped after trizact and didn’t bother with compounding.

Since my truck is black, I want the black bucket Limited headlights anyway. Hopefully some stimulus $ left over after transmission swap.
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Roadguyser

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I’ve seen videos of people using brake fluid, brake cleaner, and paint thinner to remove the spray tint off of tail lights. I will not try this because I know those chemicals will dissolve plastic. I did the passenger tail yesterday. The tint was faded out and to me just looked like crap.

I used the 3M method of plastic lense restoration but with more hand sanding. This tint kept gumming up the expensive 3” Velcro disc so I switched to hand until I removed all the tint, then finished it out with 800 and then 3000 trizact pad and compound. Of course later I watched a YouTube of a guy using denatured alcohol and removed but with a lot of elbow grease.

The tint made them look like an old cracked light with trash and mold settled in the bottom. I might get to the drivers side this afternoon. Headlights are really hazed and I might start on one of them. The battery life on the cordless 3” polisher really sucks, takes one and a half battery to finish one light. I thought of making a come to you business out of this, but not until I come up with a polisher that won’t die after one light. It’s 12V lithium 2Ah. I’d rather it be corded to a car battery I could recharge at home and do several cars a day.
View attachment 40876
I know this is years later (new to the forum) but all your efforts paid off. These came out fantastic.
 
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