Refurbish rear tail light lens

[stall]

I wonder if anyone has removed the rear-wrap-around tail light plastic lens and refurbished it?

 

Mine is discolored.

 

What is involved in removal and what did you clean it up with?

 

Thanks

[89RedDarkGrey]

A warm hair dryer and patience. Remove the screws & clips, Remove the reflectors first. Starting at one end, warm the joint and work it carefully apart. When the 3 main pieces are separated, pinch the sticky black adhesive (butyl) onto itself, like picking up chewing gum. With patience- it will all pull off. Using a solvent would just make a mess, and could damage the plastic. When I did mine- it was full of dirt, and the chrome reflector part was hazy. Washed all pieces with warm water and dish soap, thoroughly dry. I painted the reflector with chrome spray paint.

 

The clear lens was restored with a plastic headlight restore kit (RainX). Daves89 has also used Spar Urethane on the outside of lens, with beautiful results.

 

[DAVES89]

If all you want to do is restore the shine back to the taillight you do not need to remove or take apart the taillight. I refinished the Red's taillight while it was still on the car.

 I'm not good at adding old posts to current posts so maybe someone can bring Dashmasters posts up. He's got good pistures and we talked about the "How To's" of the project. 

Edited April 27, 2017 by DAVES89 (see edit history)

[Dashmaster]

Link to the topic from What did you do to your Reatta Today

 

[bgl]

Hello--We took the Reatta through a state park, which involved a few miles of gravel--or in this case powder.  I now have dust in the tail light.  Maybe will try your advice this winter.  Thanks for posting!