DaSkinnyGuy

Want to make your stock center tailight section go from red letters to a CETA style letters and bird? Read along.

My stock 2000 Trans am center tailight letters and bird was faded. I wanted to get a new one. So instead of ordering a CETA center tailight section from the dealership I made my own.

1. Order CETA decal from afterthoughtsauto.com for $10
2. Wait for it in the mail
3. Take your center section out, wet sand it with 2000 grit sand paper and hot soapy water. i used dawn dish soap.
4. Polish compound the piece ( i polished mine by hand, elbow grease powa )
5. Place decal on
6. Spray clear coat on top. Let dry for a day.
7. Polish compound the clear coat until it looks like glass

Cost
1.Decal $10
2. Sand paper $2
3. Polish compound $5
4. Clear coat spray $4

What it looked like



After wet sanded and polish compounded



With decal on, clear on, clear polished and compounded



Finished product, notice the reflection

taws6

iTrader: (2)

Nice write up

BAMALS1

iTrader: (16)

Nice job man, looks good!!!

FlashLCD33

iTrader: (8)

Looks good, I would have def gone with pewter though instead of white.

phantomzer0

iTrader: (17)

Here is the write-up for actually polishing the center panel:

http://ltxtech.com/forums/showthread...=3830#post3830

tasilver

iTrader: (2)

noticed the reflection, Looks great.

*98TransAm*

looks good!

97ramsst

iTrader: (162)

If its a true CETA color then its silver...the white ones were on 99 30th Aniv TAs.

I was going to buy a white 30th one to go on my Hawk and then realized it said TRANS AM on it and I need one that says FIREBIRD....so I am SOL unless I do something like this (and I have a extra filler panel...I am just lazy.)

x2jesse1x

iTrader: (4)

I guess this could be done to the tail lights also?

Donohue96M6Z28

iTrader: (64)

all black F T W

blown03mustang

excellent job

ZexGX

iTrader: (28)

Question about the polishing using a buffer - can you use a random orbital or do you have to use a regular one?

DaSkinnyGuy

its called elbow grease. Do some good push ups and get those biceps big. Thats how I did mine. If you dont have a buffer its not hard to do by hand.

Spd-Kilz

iTrader: (35)

That looks wicked. What compound did you use?

ReFtheMC

iTrader: (6)

Nice....

DaSkinnyGuy

turtle wax polishing compound, light - medium one.

transam5.7lt1

iTrader: (18)

That looks awesome man! I did that a while ago but I did not clear coat the center piece.

BURN'EM

iTrader: (11)

Looks good. Come over Friday, I'll use the buffer and match the tail lights to the panel. I still don't see how you polished that by hand. Your going to have fore arms like Pop-Eye!

raptorws6

iTrader: (1)

Looks good man.

ZexGX

iTrader: (28)

It's called TIME.... hahaha. I'm on a break from pushups for a bit cause I busted my *** all last week working on my car. Just wanted to know before I get started. My question was mainly "can I use plastic polishing agents with a random orbital buffer?". I have a container of 3M rubbing compound and 3M polishing compound, along with Mothers Plastic Polish. The rubbing/polishing compound should only be used if clearcoating the piece, right - or will it work on the plastic?

That said, I'll probably do it by hand - just wanted to know if I could use a random orbital buffer if hand results didn't turn out good enough..