Okay, time for some updates. I'll start from the beginning and try to et things up to current. Might take a while..haha.
I live in Hawaii and having a car with no tint and lots of window ='s green house. Speaking of green...time for the green tint. It's 35% UV tint and actually keeps the car more cool than the 35% charcoal on the Benz:
It’s actually not as dark as it appears to be in these pics and when looking out from the inside it surprisingly doesn’t make everything turn green. It actually looks quite normal with just a very slight green tinge. From the outside it appears lighter green. This is a somewhat common color/use for many VIP cars in Japan…although from my understanding their tint does not have UV protection like mine does. I couldn’t find what I wanted anywhere and ended up buying a whole roll of this tint. I’ll try to take some better pics later.
When I received the car the 3rd brake light was hanging on for its’ life…by Velcro? Yes, Velcro and some kind of sticky gluey substance. Part hardened like a rock..the other part mush. I assume they first tried to use some type of super glue which was too hard and couldn’t handle any vibration..then after that failed they tried to Velcro the whole thing on by the tan enclosure…which failed as well. First things first…damage control.
I removed all the Velcro stripping which the glue backing made the most difficult and messy. The heat really did a number on it. As I started to dismantle everything I noticed exactly how it was supposed to work. There are two small tabs which need epoxied to the black surround on the glass. The super hard glue on the glass was in fact what they tried to put them up there with…but when I took it all apart they were in the slots they’re supposed to go in..just not on the glass. I then noticed 2 square holes with plastic tabs inside..push them and the light unit separates from the enclosure. Now we’re getting somewhere. I removed everything from each other and unplugged the light unit from it’s wiring harness. I totally forgot to take pics of that process, but would rather not be reminded of it..haha.
So here’s how it goes back on:
First you need to clean all the glue and crap off the black area on the glass where the tabs go. After doing so clean the tabs and the black area with rubbing alcohol. Then comes my friend Goop™!!!:
Yes, amazing Automotive Goop. I love this stuff. I rarely use normal epoxy since this stuff works on nearly anything and can handle vibration. This is what I used to apply the tabs to the glass. You’ll want to coat the tabs and then place them in their pre-measured spots (use the light unit brackets to line them up on the glass) you’ll push them on to the glasss and remove them..this puts a coat on the glass and still leaves a coat on the tabs. Wait about 2 minutes before putting them on the glass for good. As soon as you place them use your handy light unit as a template to be sure they lined up right..then when sure press the tabs down on the glass firmly. Here’s what you’ll have at that point:
You can see here how I used them as a template (remember, let the Goop™ cure for at least 48 hours before going to the next step!):
Here it is slid onto the tabs on the glass..push it down firmly, but not with tons of force..it’ll then “lock” into place:
Here you can see how the square tabs on the light unit pop into the holes on the enclosure:
So once it’s popped on (make sure to run the wiring harness in its’ little channel in the enclosure) it looks like this:
Then from the outside if lined up correctly you’ll see no light passing through or open space:
And another shot…here you can see the green tint is not as dark as the other pics make it look:
I also replaced the bulbs with 1w LED's when I did this.
As you can see my first mods are actually to get the car back in its' original pristine condition. I'm not the type to just throw the basics on the car and call it pimp. That shit just doesn't cut it..especially on a Vanden Plas. Next on the plate of irritations was the center console cup holder...
