84 svo tail light lenses

[4eyegt350]

All right so a ordered a set of 84 style svo lenses. A had a set of 85 svo on mine, and the only difference i see are the color. changing them cause one broke. anyway my lenses came in and i've notice that on the 85 svo lenses have one line that doesn't wrap around all the way. and i open up my new lenses and all the lines go around. Then i thought maybe cause there 84 not 85. So i did some research. Come to find out a stock factory set of 84 svo tails has the design as the 85 with that one line. So i don't know what i should. I don't know if the set i have ended up like this and there not supposed to or what. I always end up with the oddball crap

[Ken P]

I'm assuming your new lenses have the vinyl tape for the stripes? The originals are painted of course and leave that small section open because of the little side marker bulb that goes in that area.

If you don't like the tape you can use it as a pattern to tape off the rest of the light. Then peel away the stripe and paint them like original factory OEMs.

[SVT Rob]

I think the 93 Cobra taillights wrapped all the way around like that.

[Ken P]

I think the 93 Cobra taillights wrapped all the way around like that.

I don't have any pics of an original 93 Cobra but I'm sure they have the cut outs as they're the same part number as the SVO lenses. The repro ones are all taped with vinyl and do not have the small cut outs.

[eeprete]

it doesn't appear to wrap around on the cobras

[19COBRA93]

For what it's worth, the factory lines are a type of ink print, rather than just painted on. I had to replace the tail light lenses on one of my '93 Cobras and I went through the same thing.

[SVT Rob]

Interesting. Thanks for the info!!

[silver85]

All right so a ordered a set of 84 style svo lenses. A had a set of 85 svo on mine, and the only difference i see are the color. changing them cause one broke. anyway my lenses came in and i've notice that on the 85 svo lenses have one line that doesn't wrap around all the way. and i open up my new lenses and all the lines go around. Then i thought maybe cause there 84 not 85. So i did some research. Come to find out a stock factory set of 84 svo tails has the design as the 85 with that one line. So i don't know what i should. I don't know if the set i have ended up like this and there not supposed to or what. I always end up with the oddball crap

The only difference is supposed to be color like you said. 84's are black to match the factory black trim from the 79-84's and the 85-86's are the medium grey to match the trim on the 85-86's. The stripe does end early on all of those lenses 84 SVO 85-86 SVO and the 93 Cobra (which used the 85-86 part number)

I looked into great detail on 93 Cobra lenses about 10 years ago. From the research I found it looks as if the stripes were added later. Like 19COBRA93 mentioned with the "ink" the stripes were applied differently than the rest of the lense paint. If you look closely at a 93 Cobra or 84-86 SVO lense you'll notice an overlap in the paint on each stripe right at the corner of the lense. From the looks of things these lenses were put into a jig and the stripes applied by a wheel. Once the wheel (or brush or whatever applicator used) reached the end of the lens it rolled off and then the lens was turned up on end to finish the stripes. Hence the reason for the overlap. I have no proof of this being the way it was done. It's merely my way of figuring out how they were applied based on what I see on the lense. When I had to repaint my 84 SVO lenses I masked everything off and painted them. You can still see a little of the overlap in the stripes on mine. The one stripe ends for the marker light behind the reflector inside the lense.

[eeprete]

If I had to bet, I'd say the SVO/Cobra stripes were applied in one of two ways, and I can agree that they were added later....

1. some sort of pressure or heat transfer fashion where sheets were made up with the stripes then applied, with the blank sheet of applique material then discarded.

2. or done on a sub-assembly process whereby pinstripe rollers ran around the contour of the lens.

The new versions of these lenses also are probably done like what I describe in #2 above, only with the pinstripe being done with vinyl that is spooled from a wheel, seeing as how perfect they are and given that the cut our area does't exist.

[19COBRA93]

I ordered a couple different sets of repro lenses off Ebay and one set was pinstriped with tape, and the other set was masked and painted on (which looked like crap).

[escogt]

I just did mine myself with 3M striping tape...in black of course.
I even left out the cut out part like the real McCoys.

[bluemax]

Daniel Carpenter actually has a copy of the original engineering drawings for these lenses and yes, the drawing shows the "cut out". I remember looking at these drawings shortly before he began the production of the lenses and we both commented on the fact that the drawing showed the dimensions of the lines and the "cut out". At the time he was still investigating the cost of painting vs. taping these lines. If I remember correctly, the drawing stated that the lines were originally "pad applied".

[silver85]

If I remember correctly, the drawing stated that the lines were originally "pad applied".

Makes sense. The lines look like they were done that way.

Daniel gets the good stuf doesn't he? The real deal tooling or the original drawings to recreate processes.

[SVT Rob]

I just did mine myself with 3M striping tape...in black of course.
I even left out the cut out part like the real McCoys.

That's what I was going to do, was "make" my own, but I ended up selling the lights to eeprete. I really have no use for them.

But now I know about the cutout part. I didn't know they were like that. I think the set that was on my 85 GT were aftermarket, because all the lines wrapped around completely.

[escogt]

That's what I was going to do, was "make" my own, but I ended up selling the lights to eeprete. I really have no use for them.

But now I know about the cutout part. I didn't know they were like that. I think the set that was on my 85 GT were aftermarket, because all the lines wrapped around completely.

Here is a better pic of the cutout that I left off for that 'factory' look.