For the last couple of years, my rear turn signals and brake lights worked marginally well at night with the head lights on. Since I don't drive my "toy" that often, and usually drive it during the day, it didn't really pose a problem. Last weekend I was at a cruise night, and left after nightfall, well I had to stop, and my worst nightmare, I heard squealing tires behind me. Luckily, I did not get rear ended, but now something had to be done. I am quite sure there are many owners of these cars, who like I ignore the problem. Well wake up people, its not that bad of a repair job.

Yes, you have to remove the bumperettes and Bumper, undo the wiring plugs, and a bunch of screws and the panel is off, I did it by myself. My housings were in pitiful shape, the reflector surfaces hardly reflected, and there was major corrosion on the sockets, forgot to mention my Cal has 267,000 miles on her. I know you can paint the reflector surfaces with "chrome" paint, but thats not even worth the aggravation. Now replating is not in my budget right now, so this is what I did. I removed the sockets and wiring, and I made paper templates of the inside surfaces. I traced these templates on aluminum foil, cut them out, and glued them, shiny side out on to the reflector surfaces.

Now I cleaned all the sockets, but this ground system, just don't cut the mustard. I had assembled the sockets and ground wire and tested for continuity, it was pathetic. So I removed the sockets, rolled down the rubber boot, and sanded off the glue on the sockets. I soldered a wire to the outside of each socket, just ahead of the lip. then I slit the rubber, where the new wire was and rolled the rubber boot back over. I sealed it up with a little silicone, let it dry, and plugged the sockets back in. I then tucked my new ground harness for each light in with the standard harness, and installed the panel. I had left lots of extra wire to go through the body, and ran this wire with the original wire to the existing ground screw inside the trunk, which I cleaned up for a good connection.

The lights work EXCELLENT now, brighter than they ever were, even when they worked well back in the early 80's. From the outside, you can't tell that I used foil for the inside reflectors, and only a GT/CS expert could tell I have extra wires there. So for about $2.00 in wire and solder, and a weekend of labor, you can save that precious rear end on that RARE car you own. ;)

Thanks for sharing, I need to do this project over the winter.

Jaycal,
Good points, just one more to add is the lenses on the GT/CS get dark with age, so if they are very dark they may need replacing. There are a couple of places out there that now make them, they are no longer NOBSOLETE parts. I will find the company and post it here, just can not find it right now. ???

Doug

You are correct about the lenses getting dark, but sometimes they just need to be polished. I used Meguires cleaner wax, and a low speed buffer, I did each lense twice, and they shine like brand new. When using the buffer, it must be a low speed, and don't press too hard, let the compound do the work. If you press hard you will burn the plastic.

I know this trick because, I have a 92 Lincoln Mark VII LSC and a 88 Cougar XR-7, and the headlights lenses haze over. This method cleans the oxidation off the plastic and makes them shine. After buffing with the cleaner wax, give them a good coat of carnuba wax, to protect the lenses from the suns harsh ultraviolet rays.

You guys may think I am cheap, but the stable of performance cars I have, it can be really costly, to shell out money for new parts all the time. I have seen the lenses you mentioned and they go for $50.00 a lense at Tony Brandas place. ::)

I wanted to bump this topic up. I wrote this a while ago, and thought it may assist some new people to the site.

You are correct about the lenses getting dark, but sometimes they just need to be polished. I used Meguires cleaner wax, and a low speed buffer, I did each lense twice, and they shine like brand new. When using the buffer, it must be a low speed, and don't press too hard, let the compound do the work. If you press hard you will burn the plastic.

I know this trick because, I have a 92 Lincoln Mark VII LSC and a 88 Cougar XR-7, and the headlights lenses haze over. This method cleans the oxidation off the plastic and makes them shine. After buffing with the cleaner wax, give them a good coat of carnuba wax, to protect the lenses from the suns harsh ultraviolet rays.

You guys may think I am cheap, but the stable of performance cars I have, it can be really costly, to shell out money for new parts all the time. I have seen the lenses you mentioned and they go for $50.00 a lense at Tony Brandas place. ::)


This just goes to show all of us Mustang folks no matter how old your car is, the old tricks work on the new Stangs as well. That's exactly what I did with my 91 LX 5.0 for the headlights and it saved me a ton versus buying the whole new front head light assembly.

Jayscal; Your not being cheap, your being cost effective and that's exactly what we need to do if we intend to keep these car's running.

Don ;D

jayscal,

can you tell us how you got sockets out to clean them?



brian

The sockets on my car had minor corrosion on them, just enough for a poor ground connection. It's been awhile since I did this, but I think that the rubber boots on the sockets were glued onto the housing, you may have to get the boots rolled down from the housing. This was to seal out moisture. When I had the light removed from the car, I was able to twist them slowly while pulling on them from the back. After cleaning the outside of the sockets and the mating surfaces of the housing, I just twisted and pushed them back into place.

If yours are that corroded, I would spray them up good with WD-40, and let them sit overnight. Then put a old bulb in the socket, this will give the socket some support, then use some pliers to give a twist. This shoud break the socket loose without crushing them. Once they are loose, remove the bulb, and finish twisting the socket out. I hope this helps.

Thanks Jay,

Will give it a try

Brian

TTT

Yearly bump.

Jay,
I had to laugh as I was reading your dilemma of the dim taillights. I had always feared getting rear ended also because of those dang dim lights. I tore them apart twice and couldn't figure out the problem. I replaced the bulbs, replaced the lenses...what could be wrong?
Then I took off the lenses again and stood back about 20 feet and just stared at the stupid thing til I went DUH! the right reflecter was black! So I did the same thing as you did and I put some aluminum foil in there. Boy what a difference! Glad I'm not the only one who did that, LOL!

~~~~Donna

I don't have the problem of dim taillights, they're real bright, but the turn signals barely flicker with the lights on. they work fine with the headlights off. Just thought I'd check before I headed out to work at 4:30 this morning and wow, hardly any signals. You mentioned that the ground wire was in the trunk. Mine is connected to the back of the taillight housing. Would that make a difference?

Bret

Each pot metal light housing has a single ground wire attached to it, this wire then should go thru an access hole into the trunk where a screw holds the wire to chassis ground. The whole problem is that pot metal is not a good conductor, and the bulb sockets have corroded where they go into the tailight housing, which is 99% of the problem. With grounding each socket by its own wire you ensure a complete circuit, and save a bunch of money, not having to buy the funky looking LED set-ups.

I thought about this when you bumped it a year ago. I wonder if Paul would consider dropping this into the new book? Might be nice, but then I guess you could always access it here. Maybe a gide with pictures, ala a "Bob Perkins" type thing. Anyone doing this in the next few weeks?

YES YES YES...!!

This WILL be covered in my new book. These threads have told me that maintence info on the GT/CS and HCS is very much needed. CS-specific items need to be explained. I think that just about everyone should fix and upgrade their taillights for safety reasons.

I really appreciate Jay sharing this info with us!! Excellent!!
I need to show how to do this with photos in the book.

Paul N.

Thanks for the post Jayscal.

My recently acquired 68 GT/CS had dim indicators and brake lights which were even dimmer when the taillights were on. With the bright days of sunny Queensland, Australia I was concerned that drivers behind me will not see the tailights working.

A couple of the bulbs were suspect so after replacing all the bulbs and adding earthing for each bulb the lights are amazing.

John

How do you get around Australia's orange turn signal requirement?

This is a good time to remember one of our own who is no longer with us. Jay passed away several years ago.

Steve

Orange is not required here anymore, at least in Queensland. OEM red's are accepted.

Once a car is a certain age there is no need to have the orange indicators in the taillights.