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This page covers details on how I painted my OEM taillights. These pictures and directions show how I painted my tails in March 2002. I was repainting my lights because I used really bad paint the first time. By the way- that bad paint was the stuff that is "imported" from Japan "especially for taillights" for about $30 a can. There's not even enough in one can to cover one taillight, plus it doesn't look good- so don't waste your money on that stuff. If you want to use this page as a guide to painting your own tails, that's up to you. Anything you do is NOT my responsibility, and I will NOT be held liable if you screw anything up. This mod may not be legal in your area. Check your local laws before attempting something like this. Supplies / tools you will need:
0. Getting ready I'm always hungry, so this is always my first step. Go grab a tube of Pringles or something so you can chow down while you're working.  1. Removing your taillights Open your trunk. If you have a 92-95 Honda Civic, this looks familiar to you. If not, you should be able to figure out how to remove your taillights- otherwise you should just stop reading here and close your browser. Look inside the outer wall of your trunk, and remove the plastic cover from your outer taillight pod.  Remove the four 8mm nuts and put them in a safe place. These nuts are all that attach your outer Civic taillight to your car.  Unplug the harness and remove the outer taillight housing from your car. Repeat on the other side of the car. Remove the three 8mm nuts from the underside of your trunk lid, and put them in a safe place. These are all that hold your inner taillight to your car.  Unplug your wiring harness and remove taillight. Repeat on the other side of the car. You should now have your tails off the car. Cover the exposed holes with something if you want, then take the taillights to your painting area. You want a well ventilated room or garage without any wind, and without any dust... like the back of my crappy Oklahoma apartment.  2. Cleaning up the mess on your taillights If you've never painted on your tails or they're still relatively clean, skip the sandpaper parts of this section. If you've painted on your tails before, or there's tons of gunk on it for some unknown reason, proceed with the sandpaper. Hopefully you bought some nice high grit wet sandpaper. I picked mine up for about fifty cents a sheet at Home Depot.  I started with 600 grit to scrape off most of the paint,  and then moved on to 1500 grit for a nice smooth finish.  Basically, you want to use small amounts of water combined with your coarse sandpaper to first remove the paint / offending material, then use the higher grit sandpaper to get rid of the large scratches and some of the swirls.  You don't have to be perfect, since you'll be painting over everything anyway- just get the major blemishes out. When you're done, use some of your rubbing alcohol and paper towels to clean it all up. You want to get all the dust off your tails before you paint.  You should end up with something that looks like this:  This shows all four pieces together, after sanding and smoothing:  If you look at the picture at the end of section 1, you can see how much junk I had to remove from my tails before I painted them. 3. Masking off areas you don't want to paint You don't want to paint certain areas of your taillights, like your reverse indicator- so mask off what you don't want to paint. Go grab your masking tape (I like Scotch/3M brand painter's tape)  and mask around the area you don't want to paint.  Take your knife and trim the masked area to what you want  and if you want to paint everything except the reverse indicator, you'll end up with something like this:  4. Painting your tails Make sure you're in an area that can have overspray, or construct a super high tech spray shield like I did here with this futuristic cardboard box. I hated my apartment and didn't really mind getting paint on the carpet, so don't follow my example unless you want to have a red floor. Use common sense here.  Grab your paint. I used two cans of Plasti-Kote Transparent Candy Apple Red and one can of Plasti-Kote Candy Apple Clear. You can't buy Testor's brand spray paints in Duncan, Oklahoma... but you can get Plasti-Kote at AutoZone. I would recommend buying Testor's brand paint over the Plasti-Kote. Testor's just seems to work better.  Now start spraying your taillight.  There are two schools of thought here. Traditional painters will want to make many light passes, layering on the paint until the desired shade is reached. That's the method that I used. Others have recommended one really heavy coat to achieve a more clear and glossy finish. Whichever method you use it up to you. Both produce good results, if done properly. Once you're done, follow it up with some of the clear paint. This will help to give you a "deeper" look, and protect your red painted finish. 5. Finishing up Let your taillights dry for a day or so, or for however long is recommended by your paint can's label. Peel off whatever masking tape you have on the tails. Reinstall your taillights on the car. 6. Results This is how my tails looked immediately after painting. Outer:  Inner:  On the car, out in the sun:  That's it! Enjoy your new all red taillights. |