Hi, I'm doing some freshening up of my '91 XJ40 that I got last week. It originally had red tail light lenses that have lightened. I prefer the smoke/grey/charcoal. What were the lense colors originally offered? I has seen the ruby red, a very light grey and a very dark charcoal (which is what I want). Just curious if anyone knew? Thanks.

 

I don't know. But all the ones I have "actually" seen are the smoked grayish. I'll put in that some have the chrome trim around them and some don't. Not sure why, but if you're buying any it's just something to look at.

 

Thanks Jerry. I believe that Jag offered a red and charcoal lense. I think the variations in color that I am seeing is due to the effect the sun. It seems the chrome trimmed tail light was offered on the VDP model although my Sovereign has chrome trimmed red lenses. I just bought a left charcoal tail light with the chrome trim off ebay. I am in the hunt for the right side. I couldn't find a good pair so I hope my two separate purchases are a color match. Oh well, can't expect perfection for parts that are 25 years old. Ren

 

You can get new smoked lenses - they're pretty cheap too ..trouble is, you have to rebuild/re-attach them to the old housings and that's a bit of a job ..not too bad if you've got the time or are a handy sort of person, but not for everyone I suppose.

I took it on and re-did mine ..see here:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ebuild-150800/


Larry

 

Larry: Thank you for digging this old post up. I will grab a pair of cheap tail lights next time they are in stock at the man mall, order a set of gray/charcoal lenses and follow your instructions and hopefully come close to your results. It's always good to learn something new. Ren
PS: The color of your car looks similar to my Silver Frost but I believe you list yours as Oyster Metallic.

 

Yep, mine has a sort of golden pinkish tone, although looks a bit silverish in the pics for sure.

cheers

Larry

 

My junkyard research has turned up an additional consideration when purchasing tail lights. It was known to me that there are two offerings of lense colors, red and gray with or w/o the chrome trim. Now I have come to realize the gray lense offered a thin black 1/4" line around the outer edge AND also a much thicker black edging starting at the outer lip and coming in about 1 1/2". I just made a purchase of a set from two different suppliers and I bought one thin black line style and one thick. I like the "thick" black edging so the hunt continues

 

Lawrence: I forgot to mention that had I paid closer attention to your old post, I would have avoided this mess as you clearly show the "thin" black edging. You can lead a horse.......

 

My '89 has what I'd assume is "red", but is more of a purple color. I'd imagine it could be a faded charcoal or red, but it's pretty dark to have been red, and I saw another '89 in the junkyard with charcoal lenses and they looked nothing like mine.

 

Civicallized: Women have their "Fifty Shades of Gray" well so do we as well as 50 shades of red, all thanks to the sun. I think new gray lenses are in order of me and I will closely follow Lawrence's instructions.

 

Just to add to this discussion, if I recall correctly, at least in the U.S., the Base and Sovereign trim level cars were equipped with "Rose" tail lamp lenses (not a true red, but a purple-pink), and the Vanden Plas models came with "Smoke" (gray) lenses with chrome trim. The tail lamps and lenses were interchangeable among all XJ40 models, and many owners chose to replace theirs with a different color than the original equipment.

Around 15 years ago, a member of the Jag-Lovers forum was experimenting with recoloring new Rose lenses to make them a true Red. I sent a set to him for his experiments but never heard back from him. At the time, the new lenses cost about $35 each, so I was out $70 plus shipping. Oh well. Maybe he'll see this and let me know the results of the experiments.

Cheers,

Don

 

Don B: That makes explains why my "red" tail lights that came with my '91 Sovereign were a completely uniform pinkish red. I attributed it to the sun but I did think it odd they had faded so uniformly. I just bought a pair of smoke/gray/charcoal pulled from the same car located in Fresno, CA. I hope they come to me looking as good as the pictures. I made at least 100 calls and looked at pictures of 40 or so lenses. If I am not satisfied, I will buy the gray/smoke/charcoal lenses from Welsh and go through Larry's procedures. I will soon have 3 sets of lenses, one the original rose/red and two sets of smoke/charcoal. It anyone needs a decent pair of rose/red then "pm" me.

Also, I just bought a 32 page sales brochure for the '91 Jag lineup. I will look to see if they reference the lense colors.