Cleaning Inside of Tail Lights
By: Dano
(From: http://www.preludepower.com/forums/showthread.php?t=288195)

Link to this page:

BACK TO PRELUDE3G.COM HOME

MC's Note:
I would really appreciate it if someone sends me some good before and after pics of this!

I'm sure I'm not the only one with black crap growing inside my tail lights. I finally decided to clean them out. ( 88 and 89 )

Before you remove the tail lights, remove the center section. If you don't you will have to fight to get the tails out. Use care not to tear up the gaskets. Remove the bulbs and wiring. ( the connector has a "T" shaped nub that plugs into the housing...turn it 90 degrees and it will come right out )

Look inside and you will see that there are Fresnel lenses between the bulbs and the outer lenses. Therefore, you can't just stick a brush inside and clean the inside of the outer lens. Drying them out can take a long time. I did them one at a time over 2 days.

I poured like 1/2 bottle of Formula 409 inside the housing along with some water. It will leak into the area where the black crap lives. Now just slosh the mixture back an fourth. Slosh, slosh, slosh. You will begin to see the lens getting clean. When you are satisfied that the black crap is gone, flush out the housing with a water hose. Flush until there are no more suds. The housings will have a lot of condensation in them. I dried them with a 60 watt light bulb in one of those reflector things. A nice hot sunny day would be the best thing.

The difference it really startling. They light up much more evenly, are brighter and they look newer from the outside. Should have taken before and after pics.