Tail Light Bezel for the 100th time

[OB Bambi]

This has no doubt been covered before, but...The aluminum bezel around my tail lights have problems with the clear coat. The coating is lifting from the aluminum. Can somebody give me a tip on how to take them off and polish them and then re-coating them? Here's a photo.

Thanks, Randy Bowman

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, sorry that your housings are looking so bad. I was thinking, that if mine get worse, that I would take them off and have a chrome shop buff them out and spray clear coat on them myself. I believe that there are only four screws, two on each side and some sealer around the top and sides holding them on. Also an anodizing shop can buff them out and maybe apply a clear anodized coating on them. Mine have it too, but it doesn't show very well in the pictures. The picture on the left shows the plastic bezels looking bad and the picture on the right shows the plainer stainless steel bezels.

[deauxrite]

I had the same problem with mine on my Safari. Are you sure that it is just a clear coat problem? I cannot be sure from the photo, but it appears that you have filiform corrosion on the surfaces. Regardless, I refurbed mine by removing them, then buffed them with a light sanding compound on a buffing wheel to remove the corrosion. Once all was smooth, I polished them back to their original semi-gloss finish and finally coated them with clear lacquer. Start to finish it was a 5-6 hour job.

Removing the corrosion and trying to blend the surfaces (the corrosion pits the areas) was the time consuming part. Once finished, they look pretty good.