Making Your Tail-Lights Completely Red

If you're like me you may not like amber lighting on your car. Or maybe you don't mind the amber lighting, but you want your Celica to be different from everyone else's in town. On my coupe, I didn't really like the amber-colored turn signal area, so I decided to paint mine red. These instructions are for a coupe or convertible, but you could do the same thing with a hatchback, except that you'd only need to paint the lense that is all orange, which would make the task even easier.

First, you need to take off your tail-lights. On each side, there are two 10mm bolts on the plastic back panel of the trunk that hold the tail-light in place, and one 10mm bolt that's accessible by opening up the little panel on the side of the trunk. Simply take off those bolts and then the tail-light should come right off. Now just take off the four bulbs by twisting their sockets counterclockwise, and now you can take off the tail-light.

Don't forget to put some masking tape over the area where your reverse light is. If you want, you could make a custom design by only putting tape where you want your reverse light to shine through.

Next you'll need to paint your tail-lights with the Testors transparent candy apple red paint. Spray very thin coats and let the coat dry for about 20-30 minutes before applying the next coat. Be very careful not to spray too much paint in one coat, or the paint will look thick and might even run. I did four coats on my tail-lights. Once you're done with the transparent red coats and the paint is fairly dry, you should take off the tape that's covering the reverse light area and spray on a few clear coats to protect the paint and keep your lights shiny. Again, use very light coats and wait for 20-30 minutes or so in between coats. I sprayed four clear coats on my lights. Once you're done with the clear coats, let the paint dry for 24 hours or so, then take off the newspaper and masking tape and enjoy your all-red tail-lights.