Watch this cracked taillight be repaired to like-new condition by a master craftsman

A cracked or broken taillight lens is usually considered something that’s unfixable. When the unfortunate happens, you’re usually off to a junkyard or scouring eBay for a replacement. But what if you’re taillight is so old and rare that replacement is not an option? A video that’s been making the social media rounds recently shows that with patience and skill, a taillight assembly destined for the trash can in fact be resurrected.

To be fair, the project is not for the faint of heart. The craftsman in the video begins with an X70 Toyota Cressida taillight that’s missing significant chunks of the lens and assembly, but he clearly has years of experience and does not even balk at the task ahead. There are multiple parts of this process that would have us rage-throwing tools across the room.

A few of the remarkable steps include building up missing parts of the housing with filler and then Dremel-ing them down, using existing parts of the lens to create a mold that replicates the light-refracting texture, sacrificing a newer taillight and melting down the red and amber parts to pour into the aforementioned mold, and sanding down the goopy mess of hardened plastic into a factory-smooth taillight.

While it’s not something we’d tackle ourselves, the good news is that it looks like customers can ship him a broken taillight for restoration. We suspect that the YouTube channel the video was posted on is not the original creator of this video, though. It says that the location is in Japan, but the videos seem to be from China or some Chinese-speaking country. If any readers know where we can send this man some taillights, please let us know.