Taillight Housing Resto

What you are looking at is the tailight housing for 1970 and '71 model year Ghias. The housing is chrome, and there are three separate light fixtures: turn signal, brake light and running light. The top area where you can see the rust, is for the turn signal. The rusty element is a reflector which, due to the intense heat of the lightbulb, sheds its' chrome rather easily. I have acquired several of these housings over the years and they are ALL rusty in this area. This one and its' mate, however, both have good solid chrome on the other inside areas, and the exterior chrome (that which is exposed when the housing is mounted in place) is perfect, with absolutely no rust pitting. The bulb sockets and their electrical contacts are likewise in great shape. On the inside, what I've elected to do is remove the reflector/heat shield, and have it rechromed. Others have recommended a light colored high temp paint, but I believe chrome plating will not be cost prohibitive, and if done right, will provide long (enough) service life.

The trick here is that the reflector is held in place by three small pins, which you can see if you look close at the pic (double click to open up the image). The pins penetrate holes located at the corners of the reflector, and then are peened over to hold the piece in place. I used a Dremel tool to grind back the peened over edges and free up the reflector. Now it's off to chrome plating! Once plated, I'll use JB Weld unobtrusively to 'weld'/anchor the reflector back in place.