Hi everyone. The outside end of the black plastic insert in the tail light of my VH Vantage (see picture) is ‘sticking out’ a bit (i.e. the last couple of centimetres feel like they need gluing down, so that it’s flush with the rest of the light.



Does anyone know (a) how they fit and/or (b) how I could make it flush?

Thanks,
Stuart

 

These pieces are easily removable and just held in place with double sided 3M tape.

With a plastic lever tool, some light heat and a delicate hand, you can remove them, clean them up, and use new adhesive to get a better, more flush fitment. I'd suggest watching a few videos on tail-light replacement as they cover how to get the painted piece off safely.

All that said, perfect fitment for any part is a difficult goal with hand-built vehicles.

 

Just glued on.

 

Thanks @1stV8V. Found a video, which showed what I needed, which is a piece of double-sided tape to put behind the end of the insert. I thought it would be more complex than that…

 

Happy to help! Good luck.

 

It should have 2 locating tabs into the tail light as well.

 

Double sided tape and locating tabs.

 

After much procrastination, I finally got around to fixing this. Despite watching videos that showed the location of the two tabs that locate the insert, I still managed to break the outer one. Thank goodness for my plastic repair gun, which has been one of the most useful tools I've bought. Just as helpfully, the insert has the type of plastic from which it's made stamped onto it, which allowed me to melt extra plastic on to strengthen the join.
I cleaned the old tape off with nail polish remover and put the new tape on (one piece down the middle of the insert, plus a piece beyond the outer clip.
Because the outer part had come adrift, I reinserted it starting at that end. The outside clip and the lip around the edge of the insert act to locate it properly. Push it down to ensure firm adhesion all along the length and that's it - all looking good!