[Dan66]

I know we now have brighter bulbs available for our taillights, and a fresh silver paint job in the taillight housings always helps... but has anyone ever just had the housings chrome plated? Looks like that mirror finish would make even a standrad bulb a lot brighter.

Ever seen it done? And would anybody have a guess of how expensive it would be?

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

I'm sure it would make them brighter, but I recently cleaned my housings up and painted them w/ a aluminum paint and they are about as bright as I would ever want them.

 

[bluebeast]

When I cleaned mine out, I sprayed some chrome Rustoleum paint in the housings and the lights were nice and visible compared to before the paint. Of course now I am a PO, so I bet the new owners are cursing me about something.../forums/images/icons/smile.gif

 

[aXeeonn]

I put aluminum foil inside of the tailight housing. It helped a lot and I like it.

 

[Guest]

One of the best things to do it paint the insides with "mixing" white in base coat clear coat paint. They will reflect light big time at a fraction of the cost of chrome.

 

[Guest]

The inside of my housings are painted dull blue pearl, just like the rest of the outside of the car. Parphrasing Bruce Springstein, if my PO has left the windows down, they'd paint the interior for free.

 

[Guest]

Sorry to post twice on the same subject, but this just occured to me.

The majority of the bulb radiates out of the housing, not to the reflector. Thus, regardless of how you treat the reflector, the effective brightness doesn't change much.

Notice on modern headlights that the little halogen bulb points at a small reflector in front of the bulb, then back to the rear reflector and out of the housing. That maximizes the brightness.

Now, if you can turn the bulb around backwards, you might get more light off of the reflector. I doubt its worth it though.

 

[Dan66]

Thanks for all the responses everybody. I'll probably just stick with my silver-painted housings - they seem to be bright enough. Just thought the chrome idea was worth mentioning.

 

[Earls66]

Hey Dan, I just saw these on line at California Mustang.
http://www.cal-mustang.com/cm_able/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&User_ID=965668&st=4743&st2=-84570096&st3=-90703451&Product_ID=5554&CATID=19&CM_SA=0

 

[Dan66]

Now, THAT'S interesting...