Refreshing the taillight assemblies on a squarie

[Jim_75Sahara]

I pulled the assemblies out yesterday and cleaned them before applying quick-drying enamel (rattlecan) as a primer. This am, I applied Krylon chrome aluminum (shiny) paint. Looks very good so far. It needs to dry before reinstallation. BTW, I masked off the bulb sockets w/electrical tape. Who knows -- brighter taillights may save my life one day. Thanks to Mike Pugh for sending me a nice replacement for the driver's side!! (A p.o. had used the wrong bulb which had partially melted the socket for the running light in my old one.)

[Craig74tii]

Chrome tape from the auto parts store works even better, but takes longer to apply.

[MrNvgtr]

I just refurbed mine too, and with all new bulbs too. Looks great except I'm stuck with a melted section on one side until I can get a fresh lense.

[Jim_75Sahara]

Craig: I thought about using the tape, but I didn't want to do delicate "surgery", so I went with the chrome aluminum paint. I put it all together & it seems brighter, though I'm looking at it during midday.

[Craig74tii]

Here it is with the tape. I was pretty happy with the results. That tii was experiment after experiment. Sadly it's dead and buried now.

[Jim_75Sahara]

So, what happened to the tii??

[Craig74tii]

This was my first 2002tii. I, like a lot of people, bought it on eBay. It was advertised as being accident free, and it had the old time BMW CCA sticker on the rear window so I guess I trusted the seller more than I should have. I had it shipped from AZ to CA and realized a few months later it was hit really, really hard in the front passenger fender. It wasn't worth restoring so it was sacrificed so others could live.

The good thing was, it had a pretty good BMW crate motor and a 4.10 LSD.