Dome Light Upgrade Fixer

[HondaBoy]

if you still have a working dome light in you 3gee, which you probley do, you may notice its lack of light that actually is putout. well, i know the inside has no reflection stuff at all. well, i took out my dome light and cleaned all the inside plastic with rubber alcohol, but not the lense. i put some chrome tape all inside where i could without touching the electrical stuff. i also used some plastic polish/cleaner on the lense. it was made yellow from cigarette smoke from when my mom drove the car. anyway, i cleaned it back to clear and has no scratches in it now! it has the stock, and may i add original bulb in it. that chrome tape made it reflect a lot more light and is much more bright than it ever was! my friends that rode in my car tonight wondered what the hell i did to make it look so bright and whiter. now i can actually see with the dome light. pretty cool! and no, i made shur it wont catch fire cuz it doesnt even get that hot or interfere with the electrical connections.

[HondaBoy]

so, anyone thinking about doing that? tryied it out again after driving at night. it was pretty bright.

[Mystic1]

My light is already brighter then most of the other cars I have owned, but I might do something like that if I get really board during the winter when I'm unable to tweek the outside.

[HaccordR89]

i have had that same problem when im looking for something at night, i usualy end up using a lighter, i'm going to give it a shot when i get a chance and i'll let you know how well it worked for me

[Dibbs]

Good job! I'm gonna do that myself.

[HostileJava]

Sounds like a blast, I'd actually like to polish mine to clear and replace the stock bulb with some red LED's then put a cap in there so that when the door closes the light fades off instead of just turning off.

[wprocomp]

sounds good...I have some of that tape...I will try that too...

[AvsFan212333]

I'm not sure what other brands are good, but I have a PIAA Xtreme White 10W dome light.

That did the trick for me. Talk about blinding! Also, the new dome light cover helped.


Onto a problem that might be solved by your chrome tape suggestion.......

I've spent around $150 upgrading all my exterior lights. Why? I have no idea. All lights are PIAA Xtreme White series bulbs.

My tail lights and front turn signal lights aren't nearly as bright as I thought they'd be with these bulbs in.

I looked inside the housings and saw that the reflective material in most of them was burnt and/or faded.

Looks like it'd be hard to put tape in those housings, plus I'm kinda lazy.

Considering these bulbs get much hotter than a dome light.....is there a warning on that chrome tape in regards to how much heat it can take?

[Dibbs]

Originally posted by AvsFan212333

Considering these bulbs get much hotter than a dome light.....is there a warning on that chrome tape in regards to how much heat it can take?

Good question. Since the tape in question usually has a paper backing I wouldn't suggest anything that produces more than 450 Deg F of heat.

It takes a lot more watts than the 10W for a dome light or the 27/28W of the twist in bulbs that go in the tails to generate enough heat to start burning objects. I know 300W bulbs can burn fabric and start fires but that's almost 3 times more wattage than PIAA headlight bulbs so I don't think I'd worry about it too much.

[Cheeseburger]

where can we get this chrome tape?

[Silver86LX]

Originally posted by Abraham
where can we get this chrome tape?

I'm pretty sure you can go to any hardware store and they should have some.

That's a great idea though. I've always noticed that it was a bit dim inside my car at night with the dome light on.

[HondaBoy]

i got that chrome tape at pepboy's. they have it at auto zone and o'reilly auto parts. i can see why you might think it has a paper backing, but that only the part that peels off. it just has some sticky adhesive on it. i preped the part where i put it with some rubbing alcohol to get any dirt off. otherwise, you can have problems with it sticking good.