68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

[Lawrence Berte]

Is the inside of the tail lamp housings (brake & back up), plain silver zinc, or painted white?

[Chuck Sangerhausen (20817)]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

Lawrence, my 70 tail light housings were painted white in the reflector area, but since my car is white, I assumed it was overspray from a poor repaint. I put mine back plain zinc. Let's hear from some others...I might be off track and will benefit from the discussion.

[kelly theaker]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

I also found mine to be white and thought it to be heavy overspray, Mine is also white. But the new are galv.

[Joe Lucia (12484)]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

Lawrence-----

For 1969 the interior portion of the tail lamp housings was plain galvanized steel. I'm pretty sure that 1968 and 1970-73 were the same.

[Joe Lucia (12484)]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

kelly and Chuck-----

If the interior portion of your tail lamp housings are white, I would say that it's overspray from a repaint. Originally, the housings were not installed on the cars when they were painted at St. Louis.

[Chuck Sangerhausen (20817)]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

Kelly, has your car been repainted? You probably know that the tail lights weren't installed until after the factory paint, so I assume it has been repainted.

Also, note that galvanizing has a different appearance than zinc plating; Zinc plating will be shiny and uniform, but galvanizing is more likely (particularly on NOS parts) to be a flat gray with the random outlines of LARGE crystals of zinc clearly visible. Size of the zinc crystals will vary depending on the process. Is this what you are see on the new housings?

[kelly theaker]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

correct

[kelly theaker]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

thanks for clearing up.

[Bill Williamson (3245)]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

70 tail lamps are white back up lamps zinc...Bill

[Terry McManmon (3966)]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

It has been years since I had my tail lamp lenses off, and now I will have to go look, but I seem to recall white paint on the inside. And my 1970 is not white.

[Jim Trekell (22375)]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

My taillamps in my original owner 70 are painted white behind the lens, will double check the back-up lights behind the lens. Its been about 13 years since I reinstalled them all in the body and don't remember for sure about the backup lights. My 7O is Donnybrooke Green so the taillamps cannot be overspray.

[Todd H 26112]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

Excellent question! I thought the originals were white and the replacements zinc or whatever.

[Joe Lucia (12484)]

Re: 68 & 70 Tail Lamp Housings

Todd-----

Not necessarily. The 68-69 outer lamps were different than the 70-E71. That not only included the lens differences, which most are aware of, but also the housing/base. It is very possible that the 68-69 base/housings, both PRODUCTION and SERVICE, were specifed to be natural galvanized material while the 70-E71 housings, both PRODUCTION and SERVICE, were specified to have a white painted interior, reflective surface. I can tell you that the PRODUCTION and SERVICE part numbers for 1968-69 were the same and the PRODUCTION and SERVICE part numbers for 70-E71 were the same. So, there's no reason to believe that there was any difference between the PRODUCTION and ORIGINAL SERVICE pieces. It is possible that a change was made, and the white reflective surface deleted, in LATER SERVICE pieces. I don't know that happened, though.