I know the current trend is for cars to have clear corners and I'm ok with that. However, what I want, is to have orange corners. In other words, taking the stock corners, that on my 89 are clear with an orange reflector on the side and dye them an orange color so they look more like the stock orange corners on earlier models.
So yesterday I took the corner light off the grill and sat down to see what it would take to dye the lens. The first problem was that it is attached to the outer housing which is chromed plastic and I don't want to dye that part. So, with my trusty, Leatherman can opener I started gently prying on the lense to try to losen it up and remove it from the inner housing...

Not gently enough...

CRACK! off popped a section of the 20+ year old, brittle lense. Crap!
So from then on, I adopted the old military reasoning of "At that point it became necessesary to destroy the villiage in order to save it" and just pryed the lense off to gain knowledge so as to not break the replacement that I was now going to have to buy.

What I found was what I had expected to find. the lense is held in place by three tabs that clip onto the inner housing and is sealed/glued in place by some kind of putty-like material all around the inner lip of the lense.

The question I have is this: Has anyone ever taken these lights apart? I'm wondering if using heat (from like a heat gun or boiling water or some other non-burning heat source) will soften the putty that holds the lense in place so it can be removed without damage. or maybe some chemical that is designed to dissolve the putty? I considered lighter fluid or nail polish remover, but that can sometimes damage the plastic.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

 

I attempted to do that to my old original 2WD corners and I guess I was a clumsy kid when I did it, but if you used your new found knowledge with some patience and warming up the assembly to seperate it from the sealant, I think you can do it

orange?
Try this, since I thought of it too...
Get a 50/50 mix of orange (amber) and clear, spray it on the inside. tada!

 

I would try boiling it in some orange clothes dye

 

yes i have..they are very fragile..put them in the oven at 250 for about 5 mins, check it..if still too hard put it back in..Be careful because the lens will warp very easily..I warped/cracked my first one, second one came off perfect you cant even tell by looking at it that it was open

stay away from heat gun it will warp the lens the quickest use it after the oven to loosen stuck areas but only keep it on there for a couple seconds and spread heat out evenly GL!

 

^ Yup, that's why baking foods makes it taste really good.

Joey, what did you use to pry the lens and assemblies?
Thanks man.

 

Dunno if this helps but I've seen that yellow tinted film on eBay before like for foglights maybe they make it in different colors I dunno how well it stick tho maybe a heat gun .to shrink wrap it on

 

Thanks everyone. Yeah, I was going to try to dye the lense with Rit dye and see how it came out. I didn't want to dye the whole piece as I was afraid that it would dye the chrome a funky orange color that wouldn't match the rest of the grille I didn't want to put a film or paint as I wanted it to look more stock than custom or have to reapply a lot. Well, now I have a broken lense to see how it takes to the dye. If it works, I'm going to try a two step process to see if I can tint only the inside of the lense of the other corner and see how it looks.
Here's the process I'm thinking of:
I'll boil/simmer the whole piece intact in water to get it up to temp and to help open the pores of the plastic. As thats going on, I'll boil the dye and water solution in a separate pot and use a candy thermometer to make both the same temp.
Then I'll dump out the water in the lense and remove most of the water from the pot with the part in it so just the lense is immersed and then fill the inside of the light with the dye using a funnel and let it simmer. Kind of like poaching an egg in a cup. Hopefully that'll dye the inside of the light and the lense without having the color stain the chrome on the outside. If it works on my old intact one, I'll order new corners and try it on them. If not... Well, I wanted matching new corners anyway... and its back to the drawing board.
I'll post up whether it was a success or failure.

 

I have a plastic screwdriver

 

Been told about the oven treatment,will find out soon as have another winder project!
Have to get on these ,will be next show season in a bink of the eye!!

 

should be able to bake your corner lights apart and go down to your local hobby store and look for some transparent orange or amber and paint the back side

 

anyone have pics of successful ones?

 

stain glass paint gives the best results stock look and does not rub or wash off..i painted my lower turn signals a yellow color and came out nice...