My tear drop tail lights have been letting water in and I have rust forming on the bulb bases and sockets. The lens has no seal between it and the metal frame and the fit is not that great. I'm assuming that is where the water is coming in since the metal frame cinches down on a rubber gasket.
I was going to silicone the lens to the metal frame.
Anyone else do something like this or see a drawback to doing it?
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Silicone can be the devil to remove... It might be easier to use "clear" acrylic caulk.... It goes on "white" the dries to an almost invisible clear... Just a thought... 
You could try to buy a rubber gasket that fits between your lens and the body.
Something like this: http://www.stoddard.com/shop/sHOPEXD.ASP?id=2045
I agree with Leon-think twice before you silicone your lenses directly to the body.
My mistake. To seal the lens to the light body on my IM I use black silicone.
Our rear lights must be different. My lens sits on a rubber gasket. I put small amount of black silicone in the gasket groove to seal out any moisture.
I have a VS and the teardrop lens is in three pieces:
A base gasket that mounts on car body
A chromed metal lens frame that screws down onto the gasket
A lens that sits between metal frame and gasket
There is no gasket between the lens and frame and this is where the water leaks in. I'm going to silicone the lens to the frame, effectively now giving me a 2 piece assembly.
Just drill a small 1/16" hle on the lowest edge of the light lense. This will allow it to vent and any water easily drain out and will be invisible.
The water goes to the lowest point which is the bulb sockets, and is rusting things out down there. It seems the better approach is to try and keep the water out.
Whoa, water is probably not leaking in but forming there from condensation. First take a q-tip and WD40 and clean out any visible rust. Using another q-tip, apply a thin layer of dielectric grease. 
If you were to see the very loose fit between the lens and lens frame, you would understand why I think that water is leaking in.
However I do think cleaning and using dielectric grease will be useful no matter the cause.
Thanks!
Hey Cole, can't you just buy a one piece tear drop? with your existing gasket problem solved? or I am I over thinking this?
Speedster "D"
I never thought of that! I did silicone the lens to the frame and I'll give those a go. If it doesn't work, I'll buy one piece ones.
I just looked for 1 piece lens assemblies and couldn't find any, they are all like mine, the lens and lens frame are separate.
http://www.sierramadrecollecti...roduct_list&c=63
Does anyone else's leak?
Hopefully the silicone will work for you. The lens retainer on my lenses seems to press them sufficiently against the gasket to prevent leaks.
Forgive me if this is stuff you already know and tried -
The gasket should like this:
Was the edge of the metal lens retainer actually nested in the gasket's outer lip, like this:
The gasket overlaps and covers the edge of the metal lens retainer all the way around. Before tightening the retainer and lens to the base of the light assembly you can use a credit card to help coax the gasket flange out and over the edge of the lens retainer. It should be snug - my recollection is that you shouldn't have to hold the assembly together while tightening the screws - the flange is tight enough to hold the retainer and lens to the base.
If this wasn't the problem, I'd remove the retainer and lens and check to confirm that one of the screws is not bottoming out or seizing on something and thereby preventing the whole assembly from being tightened like it's supposed to be.
It's also possible that the gasket was poor or was misaligned or it could have been that the part of the lens that is supposed to seal against the gasket had some imperfection which prevented a proper seal.
Anyway, hope the silcone works!
Ted, thanks so much for the photos and detailed explanation! I'll check everything out.
Great suggestions; I did have that problem. When my new VS was delivered 8 yrs ago it had water up to half the lens' height; on both tailights. I use a small little dab of clear siliconeall around the gasket before I put the meal surround with the lens in. I also cleaned and dried out all the bulb sockets and put dielectric grease everywhere. It seems to have worked for the past 8 years.
