Has anyone successfully disassembled a tail light to have the frames rechromed?
John
John
restoring chrome tail light frames?
- Thread starter JFENG
- Start date
Not me, thought about it, although I would want some spares to practice on, these are die cast muck metal which is notoriously hard to chrome successfully, the edges of mine were a bit bubbled, but the faces ok, so I sanded the edges and carefully painted them same colour as the car, one day I will have a spare $800 odd to buy new ones 
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There are some threads on that and from what I remember, getting the lenses out and then back in it and increadible PITA
John,
from everything i heard, it was possibly doable ... but success is not always achievable. several months ago there was a guy on ebay selling a NOS frame and a clear lens ... but as i remember no other lens. so i toyed with buying it, but i decided that mine were in decent shape. then i bought a drivers side NOS tail light w/ red turn signal for less than the guy wanted for the other piece that needed lenses. John, i might have one that you could practice on.
so if anybody runs across a great right side taillight with a red turn signal - i'm interested. i have one with some minor cracks in some lenses that will work until i find a really good one.
from everything i heard, it was possibly doable ... but success is not always achievable. several months ago there was a guy on ebay selling a NOS frame and a clear lens ... but as i remember no other lens. so i toyed with buying it, but i decided that mine were in decent shape. then i bought a drivers side NOS tail light w/ red turn signal for less than the guy wanted for the other piece that needed lenses. John, i might have one that you could practice on.
so if anybody runs across a great right side taillight with a red turn signal - i'm interested. i have one with some minor cracks in some lenses that will work until i find a really good one.
Problem 2 with the frame
Somewhere I heard that a member(?) disassembled and had the frame re-chromed as his lenses war in great shape. When the frames were returned the new chrome was just about an angstrom unit thicker and the plastic lenses would not fit back in.
Somewhere I heard that a member(?) disassembled and had the frame re-chromed as his lenses war in great shape. When the frames were returned the new chrome was just about an angstrom unit thicker and the plastic lenses would not fit back in.
Yes, I have done this. The lenses seem to be insert molded onto the frames. I used a dremel with a mini burr to grind away the retaining beads on the backside of the lenses. Pretty easy once you get a feel for the softness of the plastic. Take care to grind the bead evenly to minimize visible uneveness from the other side. The chrome shop had no issues with the frames. It was about $300 for both sides. Once rechromed, I used gorilla super glue to reinstall the lenses. I mixed & matched lenses from 3 junk sets to get a full hand worthy of the new chrome. See http://www.vranedom.com/Exterior/Exterior.html. Old, uncracked lenses polish easily.
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Didn't know, that the inserts were available seperately, but actually there are auctions on German EBAY for one exchange set of lenses for both sides.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/BMW-2000-CS-...LASSE-BELEUCHTUNG-ERSATZTEIL-NK-/400567567363
Does anybody know, that these sets were available originally ?
cheers
Ingo
http://www.ebay.de/itm/BMW-2000-CS-...LASSE-BELEUCHTUNG-ERSATZTEIL-NK-/400567567363
Does anybody know, that these sets were available originally ?
cheers
Ingo
They are either used or repros, never available separately from BMW.
EJ333
Well-Known Member
FYI, these lenses on ebay Deutschland, do not ship to the United States. At least for this particular seller. I still wonder how these lenses would turn out as replacements though.