Rear Lamp Refurbishment

Upon looking through a few photos from the tail end of 2009, I noticed the black paint on the lamp surrounds of the Torino were looking tired and in need of attention – a job for the winter I thought.

In order to remove the tail lamps on this model of the Torino, the central reflector and central reflector surrounds must first be removed as their ends overlap the trims of the tail lamps. This was simply done by undoing the retaining nuts in the inside of the boot panel and carefully lifting them away.

Due to the light alloy structure any stuck areas should be teased carefully to avoid twisting them or distorting them as this will create problems for when they are refitted. Once done the four lamp retaining nuts could be removed and the lamps withdrawn from the rear panel.

As is often the case with a job like this, you identify additional work along the way. It then becomes a question of deciding what further work you intend to complete whilst it’s all apart, either based on the needs of your ride or what you have time / resource for.

In my case there was a lot of cleaning from where the dust and dirt had got in behind the trims, which couldn’t be seen or removed until the trims were taken off. There were also the tell tail signs of corrosion starting right in the corners where the panels join – no doubt a result of the dirt retaining moisture in those areas. There was also a dull matt and flaking finish behind the petrol filler flap, which whilst not obvious unless the fuel filler flap was open bugged me! - I will cover the work on these areas in the next technical article, but for now back to the lights.

The tail lamps came away in one piece that would then need further work to separate the individual units and trims. One thing that was very apparent was the pitting in the chrome, something that will have to be addressed but not on the agenda for this year as I left it too late to allow for the time to wait for the re-chroming to be done and I wanted the car back on the road for any good weather days at the start of the year.

Removing the four retaining nuts allowed the whole unit to be separated, which now meant I had surrounding exterior lamp trim, lens and lens rear panel incorporating bulb holders as individual units.

The lens required little more than an interior clean to remove many years of grime that had built up. The lens rear panel had at some stage been painted white by I assume a previous owner. Whilst white is reasonably reflective I felt repainting with Chrome paint would assist a brighter reflection. Rather than remove all of the white paint a “key” was provided for the new paint to be applied by rubbing a fine abrasive paper over the white painted areas. This was completed across the entire interior surface of this panel.

In addition the exterior side of the rear lens panel was badly corroded around one of the bulb entry points. I removed the corrosion using a Dremel and suitable attachment, and with the corrosion gone, prepared this side of the panel for painting.

If you like to work on your own ride a Dremel is a useful tool particularly for intricate work, and are not too expensive either – in my opinion a worthwhile investment.

After providing a “key” on both sides of the panel a degreasing wipe was used to then ensure all traces of dust and other contaminants were removed from the surface to be painted. The using the aerosol as instructed the paint was applied and left to dry.

Having decided to have the lens surrounds re-chromed another time, I set about cleaning the surrounds thoroughly and the rubbing back the black painted area back to provide a key for the new paint. I chose satin black as it was closest to the original finish that had started to flake away.

Then after careful masking and degreasing, the surrounds were painted and left to dry. A similar process was used for the “Torino” badge for the fuel filler and the other trims that surround the main reflector across the back of the car. Any rough edges following the removal of the masking were smoothed back using “T cut”. Then the lenses were re-assembled using new rubbers and gaskets to ensure a water & moisture tight seal for when they were installed back on my ride.