Brighter taillights after painting the insides of the housings?

[Kern Dog]

I used to think that the brightness of the taillights in "Ginger" were quite good.



This next picture is a reversed image but it is sized to display on this forum.



The taillights in "Jigsaw" are nowhere near as bright:





A guy at FABO/ForABodiesOnly.com posted about painting the housings with FLAT white paint. He said that it reflected the light better than the silver color that these cars has when new. I'm going to check into that and report back...

[Kern Dog]

In case you want to read for yourself.....

https://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/threads/ceiling-white-paint-really-works.564618/#post-1975107696

[70 sublime]

Why are the lights brighter on your red car vs the project car ?
Did you already repaint inside the tail light housing on the red car ?

[Kern Dog]

"Ginger" was restored way back in the early 2000s and I may or may not have sprayed the inside of the housings. I'll know when I open them up. The other car that I call Jigsaw is as UNrestored and junkyard fresh as you may ever see.

[will]

What's the voltage at the sockets? How dirty are the housings? If they're junk yard fresh, they may need a cleaning.

[Kern Dog]

Jigsaw sat wrecked from 1995 to 2019....







I dragged it out of a guy's backyard after putting front suspension back in it. The housings are surely dirty inside.

[Nacho-RT74]

In case you want to read for yourself.....

https://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/threads/ceiling-white-paint-really-works.564618/#post-1975107696

Sure I can see the reason why the led doesn't gives the same power. Is not designed to 360~ish radiation so the housing (no matter the color) won't have light to reflect coming from the led.

Sure white will reflect more than argent/silver... chromed would be the next bid. But personally I prefer to keep argent/silver my housing LOL

[Mike DC]

 
For a street restomod I'm a fan of brightening the taillights up.

White painted housings do help.  Look at any modern taillight assy and that's how they are made.  A white plastic inner piece + a clear red outer lens.     
 

[Kern Dog]

For a street restomod I'm a fan of brightening the taillights up.

White painted housings do help.  Look at any modern taillight assy and that's how they are made.  A white plastic inner piece + a clear red outer lens.     
 

Is that really true? I have not taken apart any modern cars to confirm.

[Kern Dog]

I meant to update this thread since I finally got around to doing the work.
I can now confirm that this really does make a difference.
With the rear of the car facing west in the afternoon, the lights will not be as bright. These are just the taillights, not brake or turn signal.



This is the left housing. As you can see, it was painted dull silver. It may have had some gloss when it was new but here we are 55+ years later.



The top side of the housing shows signs of the bulb heating up the paint.



The bottom side looks fine.



Using this spray paint....



The left taillight does look a bit brighter.

[Kern Dog]

The spray paint that I used was applied after cleaning the housings and letting them dry. I laid on 2 coats and reassembled it all. I have 1157 bulbs in the outer and middle sections and the inners are single filament #89 bulbs. The 1157 low filament is around 8 watts, the 1095 is around 7.5 but the 1095s are not readily available. The #89 bulbs fit the sockets and have around 7.75 watts so the closely match the 1157s when the taillights are on.
I read a little more on the best paint to use and it was a latex house paint.



Two coats to cover the insides...





The brightness improvement is pretty obvious...



that is just the taillights, NOT brake or turn signals.

[Mike DC]

 
Holy crap.  That's a big visual difference once you have the bulbs lit up.


What's the reason for using latex paint?  Is it for the texture/finish?