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.. I happen to like my led tail lights. AND my led Guage cluster. On a blacked out car they look good. And what's wrong with knight rider? Damn haters. :uzi:
And furthermore......just to show that I'm not afraid to call a spade a spade.


My drag car from 2007.
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How much crow did I eat as a result of installing those god awful tail lights on this car?

That still doesn't change the fact that K.I.T.T is still lame.;)
 
I think a set of led tails would look great if executed tastefully. We all incorporate modern styling into our cars, and the led taillights on modern cars look GREAT. I just haven't seen a set on a fox yet that nail the look. As mentioned previously, i think they should appear stock until lit, and then look like something you'd see on a new lexus or a lincoln.
 
@hoopty5.0 Those look to be the exact ones I posted in that random pic from American Muscle. Everyone has their own opinions, and thats why aftermarket companies get rich off of us! A-holes like me like tasteful stuff, and weirdo nice guys like you like KITT and sucky LED stuff. But then there is Mike, who wraps us all up into one big Griswold fam like the Clark that he is, and uses tasteful Shelby sequential tails with weirdo LED front lighting on the same car. How many strings are you going to cram inside those front blinkers, Clark?
 
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Whoever coined the phrase 2 steps forward, 3 steps back never walked in my shoes.
My version would be 2 steps forward, 3 steps back, step off a cliff, fall 200', die, get reincarnated, grow up, get old, take 2 steps forward then 3 steps back.
again.
In my last update, I posted a pic of G fin V1.0 (Notice that I added a version identifier). I stated that I was almost done, then I'd tackle how to mount that sealing flange under the hood before welding the completed G fin ontop.

Well I did that.

I decided to weld the sealing flange to the underside of the hood. Now I could've glued the thing, or I could've riveted the thing, I could've countersunk 15 screws and screwed the thing to the trunk,.....But NOOO, I had to weld it instead.

Being ever so methodical, I ran around the perimeter of that thing with small spot welds, being sure to move around and not get the metal too hot to avoid warping the trunk. Did it warp anyway?.......Well, lets just wait to find that out.

I get G fin V1.0 complete. Each fin on the G fin layered on top of the one before it, spaced 1/2" apart from each other, all exactly 2 " wide, and angled so that the actual top of the G fin stands 1.125" above the trunk deck. I set the thing on the trunk, measure for placement, making sure that the thing was square, and weld it on there. Do I just tack it w/ 4 corner welds and step back?.......(Who are we talking about here?) Hell no, I weld the snot out of it. probably 30 spot welds completely around the perimeter. Only after that do I step back and look at it to see how it was gonna look from behind.

It was un level.

NO FREAKIN WAY! I checked that thing and it is exactly 1-1/8" high on all four corners, referenced from a completely flat surface.But there it was, fully 1/4" higher on the driver side than it was on the passenger side. Remember the part that we were gonna get back to? The part where we were gonna learn if welding the flange warped the trunk?

Well it did.

It warped the freakin hell out of it,.. and now there is a G fin w/ 30 spot welds on there, holding everything all kinds of wonky. I had no choice but to cut it back off.

I remove the trunk, beat, bang, tug, and pull,...trying to get rid of the warpage. I break out the torch again, and shrink thenow stretched metal, Deja Vu flashbacks start popping in my head,.....Wasn't I just doing this crap w/ the hood a couple of months ago? The one that I had to throw away? Now here I was, at 9AM banging the hell out of the trunk, disturbing the peace, all in some vain attempt to correct something that didn't have to happen. If I only would've just glued that damn flange to the bottom of the trunk, I would be done w/ this damn thing. Now trying to fix it was becoming a real pain in the ass. Problem was that alot of that warpage was covered by the trunk reinforcement, and you just couldn't get a hammer to bear on that part of the metal.

I managed to get it back to tolerable, and moved forward again. Tolerable for me would probably give a real body man a stroke, but what can I say,.......I ain't a body man.
That's why they make Bondo.

I decided that since the G fin was off, I'd change it. I didn't like the fact that it grew wider at the bottom, and really wasn't feeling the layered look I had created either. That created it's own set of issues...I didn't have anymore steel.

I cut the thing apart.

I was very careful in doing that, seems I'm real good at cutting junk back apart that I had previously welded the hell out of. I decided that the new version would have each fin (I'm calling them blades from here on, just so you know) I decided each blade would be butted up against each other, so that it would stay rectangular in shape, as opposed to getting bigger as each course was added like before. So I rebuild G fin. We're now on V2.0.

I tack it on, (Can you believe that? I tacked something) and step back and look.

I like the new version,....but I don't like how high each blade is. 1-1/8" is just too high. I decide to cut it back off again. ( there still is about 10 tack welds to cut back off)

I get the thing back off, and adjust the angle that each blade rakes back at. I lower it so that the actual stand off of the trunk is 5/8". Doing that shortened each blade though, they barely covered the G hole, but again, I managed. We're talking about G fin V3.0 now BTW. We'll give @95BlueStallion credit for the suggestion to lower the thing,.....(and he thinks I don't listen to him).

I step back, I like the look. Much better. I Mike-if-ficate the thing, and weld the hell out of it again.

I hear a "pop" as the welding progresses. I now have another warp to contend with.

I ain't cuttin' the thing back off, I'll just have to fix it best I can.

The front edge closest to the trunk edge has oil canned. You can take your finger, and push the metal down, and it pops up, hence the "oil can" label. The fix for something like this requires that the metal be shrinked, and that is done w/ a torch, a shrinking dolly, or a few other thingy dodgers out there that create heat to the metal that you can quickly quench.

I got a torch, and I got a really sharp punch. Everytime I use that freakin torch, I make a bigger mess that I started with,....so I take the punch, back it w/ a hollow backed dolly, and whack it. You create a little dimple when you do that. That dimple is in effect shrunk metal. It also creates a low spot. Low spots almost always are accompanied by high spots. It's a nasty path to start going down. It's the "hack" way of doing it. It's my way of doing it, I'm sick of dicking with warped metal.

It takes four whacks. If these dimples were visible on the underside of the trunk, I might have thought twice, but since they were over the reinforcement,.......it's gonna be my little secret. Well,.......mine and however many others that actually read these updates, and don't just jump straight to the pictures.

Speaking of which, I just happen to have.

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This is the culmination of a full day of the type of body work I do. Slather bondo on, sand too much off, lather, rinse repeat. In between dry times, and then the hour or so each sanding session that brings me to this point,...still not done. See all the bondo around the perimeter of the thing? Everywhere there's bondo, there's wavy metal. Way too much bondo, also entirely too much ask me if I care, I just want it to be done.

While waiting for the junk to dry, I dinked.

I smoothed the rear bumper.

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I painted the cover plates for the heat exchanger, and riveted them dudes in place (probably be another decision I grow to regret).

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Say what you will,...all of the OMG's aside, I'm happy with the way that G fin V3 looks. It's square, it's low, and most important, it's level.
 
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I like it, Mike. Looks cleaner than the overlap v1.0 style this way. I decided to work on what I thought was some surface rust on the rear door jamb of my Explorer. But after a short bit, I now have a big gaping hole in that spot. Being its a $2000 winter driver, I sanded and painted all around it, and will be sealing and riveting a piece of painted metal over the top of the hole. Turns out I am not a body man either, and will be satisfied with it being covered.
 
madmike1157 said:
I got a torch, and I got a really sharp punch. Every time I use that freakin torch, I make a bigger mess that I started with,....so I take the punch, back it w/ a hollow backed dolly, and whack it. You create a little dimple when you do that. That dimple is in effect shrunk metal. It also creates a low spot. Low spots almost always are accompanied by high spots. It's a nasty path to start going down. It's the "hack" way of doing it.

It sounds like it is time for some aircraft dimple dies...

springback-dimple-die.jpg


See aircraft dimple dies - Google Search for more dimple dies
 
This is me.
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After several days of battle with the G fin, I win. I finally managed to get the trunk smooth enough to consider priming the thing for blocking. It's going to stand by mode now, waiting on the rest of the car to catch up. Since you've seen the various iterations of the trunk, I'll spare you.

Since I actually finished something early, I had time to do something else. I didn't have alot of time before dark, so I needed to find something that would only take an hour or so.

I decided to hook up the G hole. The G hole had been mocked up from the rear bumper all this time, but never actually made into a real live working exhaust tip. Today I decided to do that.
The distance between the muffler and the inlet of the exhaust was only about 6" and required about a 45 degree bend. I found a partial bend in my "bends box" and welded the V band flange that I purchased for the purpose. I also did the same to the G hole.
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I'll tell you what. After owning a little 125 volt Lincoln MIG for about 15 years, I finally upgraded to a 220v piece last year. Because I'm cheap, I bought a Chinee brand from a company called LOTOS. 175 amp 220v welder, that came w/ regulator, and a spool gun for $479.00. This thing works flawlessly, and I have certainly used the hell out of it as a testimonial to its durability.

After welding the two flanges, (the easy part) I put the things back up in the car, and had to weld the thing to my muffler. (Not the easy part) Laying on your back w/ the work 2' up is a true challenge for anybody. Couple that to the frequent instances that a molten ball of steel almost always manages to drop and splatter on the cement right under your back, and it always makes for a fun afternoon.

But again, I managed.
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