I am just wondering, I love the look of tinted tails / 3rd brake lights, but absolutely HATE the fact that most of them I see you can barely tell if the lights are on or not, and I am in no hurry to get rear ended!

Is there a way, or does somebody make tinted tails / 3rd lights for 2004 - 2008 F150s that don't interfere with light output from the light itself?

 

you are kidding right?

That's like asking for tinted windows that are darker on the outside, but lighter on the inside.


In all seriousness, your best bet (and legal) would be either Harley tails, or open yours and paint the housings like harleys.

 

Have a professional paint shop do them. They mix a tint of black into the clear and shoot them. Trust me if you've messed with niteshades and used it when driving down the road you'll be able to tell what is niteshaded and what was done by a shop. The light output isn't the same. Niteshades almost blocks all light out, hence its for off road use

 

Paint the insides black. The black reflecting into the red lens will give it a deep, blood-red look to it.

 

yep, best thing to do is paint the housings black... i prefer black factory housings over anything else, and i do not like smoked, nite-shaded, ghetto looking lenses

 

Harley tails.

 

Just a heads up(since you are also from Texas ) . Apparently they are really cutting down on tinted lights. I can't get mine to pass inspection here. And my lights are barely tinted.

Rob

 

Yah Rob its been illegal since day 1, but about a year ago Tx sent out a notification to all inspectors that really spelled it out that tinted tails are infact illegal

 

That's why you have a spare pair like me! Except the spare pair is what's always on and are the factory ones, so the smoked ones I don't like are the backups . . .

You can always just go somewhere that'll pass you. I have to use my connections because I don't have cats on my truck and my windows are so dark they may as well be painted black

 

Yea, I knew it was illegal, just never had an issue. But the guy, like you said, they are really cracking down on tint more now.

 

I had a lot of buddies that all had to sand the nightshade off of their lights awhile back, all within a month of each other. So I believe it that they cracked down

 

I disagree as long as the person doesn't do a bunch of coats or super thick coats. I did 4 light coats.

Nightshades:



This is just the regular tail lights, not the brake lights. Plenty visible.



Pretty "ghetto", eh?

 

Hence tinting them by blacking them out inside, like Harley tails. The only way to tint that doesn't look like cheese.

All Harley tails have that make them darker is the non reflective surfaces of the interior of the tail light are black where the same surfaces on stock tails are chrome.

If you want the real thing get Harley tails. If you want similar DIY them. There's a good write up out there for that.

 

The above pictures are also LEGAL, dbhost. My neighbor is a police officer and told me that as long at the reverse part is unpainted, you're fine. It also looks cleaner to leave that part alone like Randy did

 

That is absolutely untrue. Go look up and study the ordinance, don't trust word of mouth.