just the factory led tails.


professionally painted. I typically go a hair darker but these have a hint of red in them in sun light.

A high quality multi directional led bulb definitely helps out if you’re tinting any kind of light. On my trucks I don’t mine them a little darker, but on wifeys explorer they only have a mild smoke to them.


These were my last trucks, but I feel like the F-150 tails are quite a bit brighter, especially the led accents.

 

you can have them painted on the inside. Gives it a darker look without the tinted look which I’m not a fan off. Precision Retrofit

 

Those look perfect. I’m assuming they cut them open, paint, and reseal? I didn’t see that service on their site but I may have missed it. Would you mind giving me an idea of what this cost you?

Also, looking at your pics, it looks like you’ve got custom painted emblems. Are they black and magnetic? I’ve got a set just like that headed my way. Do you have a pic of the front?

 

I shot a light coat of a tinted clear on mine, and replaced all halogen bulbs with LED to brighten things up. There is a TON of red there, and shading it some seemed to help

 

yeah they did cut open. That’s why they have the border painted to cover up the marks it left. Ideally I’d have them painted on the inside with no black border outside. It’s grown on me though. As for price I know the cost of the plain LED tails has gone up so I don’t want to say. I will say at the time it was $2-300 more than buying the oem’s on eBay. There’s 10% off now I think.

 

Why not wrap them with lamin-x tint? If you hate it you can just peel off.

 

Talked to a guy today who is a painter at the local Ford collision center and has done some tinting in the past. He said he could do exactly what I'm looking for with automotive paint products and in a professional automotive painting environment for $150. That includes taping off the reverse lens so that it stays clear, lightly tinting the entire light, then masking everything except the chrome accent stripe and tinting it dark, and then spraying a final coat of just clear over the whole thing so that it's smooth. He seemed very knowledgeable and even mentioned that he likes to add the tiniest bit of blue along with black into the clear in order to achieve the gray smoked look. He said that mixing straight black with clear often turns out more brown. I will most likely let him do this as soon as I can pick up a spare set of tails. He said the turnaround would be about 3-4 days but I can't go that long without my truck.

 

Cool!! Good luck finding a pair, maybe a junkyard? Don't know where you are, but if you're around me, I'll loan you my OEMs.
$150 sounds good to me, I'd do it.

 

Hey man, I super appreciate that but I'm in NC so we'd have to ship them back and forth. I actually found two sets locally...one set about 50 minutes away for $50 and another set about a mile from my house for $80. Time is invaluable these days so I think I'll pick up the $80 set and just try to resell them to recoup as much as I can when done with this little project.

Now to decide which LED tail and reverse bulbs to go with. If I remember correctly, seems like I read that the signals should flash normally outside but I will get hyperflash inside unless I use Forscan to fix it.

 

I don't know if they'll flash normal, but ya on the Forscan. Some guys use resistors, but IMO, Forscan would be the better way.