Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.
- Status
....... 
I'll put that one on the list.
You need to find a "Why I oughtta......." smiley.
That would typically get said by Moe, right before he smacks one of the other two stooges.
I'd use that all the time.
* again, using an iPad here...... See if I can make a simple copy and paste work.
Funny how life changes in an instant.
One minute I'm contemplating retirement, making plans for a mega trip across the desert SW by myself on a 2 week long 4000 mile drive, One kid is 23 and in the AF, the other is almost 18 and a senior. I'm 58, The wife is 51, and we're both looking forward to being able to do what we want, when we want.
Not even a week ago, I'm working in the garage designing, and building what I called a rear seat delete. Less than a week later, I've adopted a little Japanese kid. Now, instead of making a rear seat delete, I gotta consider making a place for him to sit instead.
He was supposed to be here today at 4, and for what ever reason I got it in my head to have the rear seat delete reconfigured, and have a place for the little tyke to sit. ( I know that the car is far from running, but you can call it my " need to make a place for him in my life".)
So like a mad man, I furiously go about the do over. Redesigning this, cutting that, glueing this, bolting that. By the end of the day, I finished it just in time for his grand arrival. I made the necessary attachments, and put him in place.
I looked at pictures of his father, and I gotta tell you, he looks just like his dad,
He's kinda cute, in a animatronic baby HAL 9000 kinda way.
This kid's gonna go with me everywhere,....we're gonna be like peas and carrots.
Obviously NOT a real Japanese kid. I finally finished the "where am I gonna put the subwoofer, and what am I gonna do with that opening in the center between the two sides dilemma".
Made out of 3/4" MDF, anchored to a spar between the sides, This is how I solved the two issues. The 12" sub is rated to work in a really small enclosure if its' sealed, and this one measures just .5 cu.ft. The amp is a 2/3/4 channel unit that can be configered to run one pair and a subwoofer (which, coincidentally is exactly what I have). I still have to figure out how I'm gonna wire the thing, as I really didn't leave myself a solution to hide them.
But all of the sawdust making is now officially done. The MDF boards that I have been stepping over are now the back seat. Obviously, I do not intend to keep that stuff in there through out the next phase of the build, but now it just went from one more thing to one less thing I gotta do.
And then there's the back glass.
I trashed my back glass when I cut out the wheel tubs two years ago. The grinding sparks pitted the hell out of it. Consequently I needed a new one. Again, not that it's any big hurry, I just wanted to have one sourced and know that it'll be there come time to finish.
If you recall last month when I bought my hood from Beaky Buzzard, the Fairmont that the hood came off of had what looked like a good back glass. I called BB and asked if he could confirm that the glass was good, no scratches, or chips, and could he cut it out w/o breaking it. He said he could, and he'd call me after he got it out. He calls w/i an hour, tells me that it's good to go, and that he's gonna be coming my way next week to go to the VA hospital, and he'd be happy to meet me with it somewhere to save me the trip. We arrange a meeting place.
The back glass is really dirty, no way to tell if it was scratched because of the layer of green crud that has been manifesting on it as a result of the car sitting in the woods for the last who knows how many years. I start cleaning the thing, and no sooner do I get the back side clean, I find a large vertical scratch right in the middle of the glass. Evidently, the PO had some sticker there, and must have used a steak knife to gouge it off.
I called Beaky.
He more or less tells me I can either return the glass to him for a full refund ( minus a 2 hour round trip to get it there and back) or I could keep it. It was off of a JY car after all. I told him that I was expecting a perfect piece of glass for 100.00 and clearly this is not. could he discount it accordingly?
Nope.
Always kills me when somebody would rather give out a full refund, and sit on something that may never sell, as opposed to keeping it sold and coming off the price. Especially when I could prove that it wasn't as represented.
By now the glass is spotless save for the scratch. I told the guy that it wasn't what I expected, but I'd keep it. He said that he'd make it good on future purchases. ( Like I'm gonna go back up there for.......what?)
I don't know if you can see this scratch, the pic probably wont show it.
But it's there, believe me when I tell you. About 8" long, right in the middle, running north and south.
I though about it for a while, and I decided to fix it.
I did what your mommie always did when you got a scratch.......
I put a band aid on it.
This was one of the first gen Cyclone decals that I had made that was too big for the front fender. Covered the scratch almost completely.
I put the thing in the box with the windshield, There is soo much bubblewrap between the two and all around the sides, It seems like the safest place I could store the thing.
One minute I'm contemplating retirement, making plans for a mega trip across the desert SW by myself on a 2 week long 4000 mile drive, One kid is 23 and in the AF, the other is almost 18 and a senior. I'm 58, The wife is 51, and we're both looking forward to being able to do what we want, when we want.
Not even a week ago, I'm working in the garage designing, and building what I called a rear seat delete. Less than a week later, I've adopted a little Japanese kid. Now, instead of making a rear seat delete, I gotta consider making a place for him to sit instead.
He was supposed to be here today at 4, and for what ever reason I got it in my head to have the rear seat delete reconfigured, and have a place for the little tyke to sit. ( I know that the car is far from running, but you can call it my " need to make a place for him in my life".)
So like a mad man, I furiously go about the do over. Redesigning this, cutting that, glueing this, bolting that. By the end of the day, I finished it just in time for his grand arrival. I made the necessary attachments, and put him in place.
I looked at pictures of his father, and I gotta tell you, he looks just like his dad,
He's kinda cute, in a animatronic baby HAL 9000 kinda way.
This kid's gonna go with me everywhere,....we're gonna be like peas and carrots.
Obviously NOT a real Japanese kid. I finally finished the "where am I gonna put the subwoofer, and what am I gonna do with that opening in the center between the two sides dilemma".
Made out of 3/4" MDF, anchored to a spar between the sides, This is how I solved the two issues. The 12" sub is rated to work in a really small enclosure if its' sealed, and this one measures just .5 cu.ft. The amp is a 2/3/4 channel unit that can be configered to run one pair and a subwoofer (which, coincidentally is exactly what I have). I still have to figure out how I'm gonna wire the thing, as I really didn't leave myself a solution to hide them.
But all of the sawdust making is now officially done. The MDF boards that I have been stepping over are now the back seat. Obviously, I do not intend to keep that stuff in there through out the next phase of the build, but now it just went from one more thing to one less thing I gotta do.
And then there's the back glass.
I trashed my back glass when I cut out the wheel tubs two years ago. The grinding sparks pitted the hell out of it. Consequently I needed a new one. Again, not that it's any big hurry, I just wanted to have one sourced and know that it'll be there come time to finish.
If you recall last month when I bought my hood from Beaky Buzzard, the Fairmont that the hood came off of had what looked like a good back glass. I called BB and asked if he could confirm that the glass was good, no scratches, or chips, and could he cut it out w/o breaking it. He said he could, and he'd call me after he got it out. He calls w/i an hour, tells me that it's good to go, and that he's gonna be coming my way next week to go to the VA hospital, and he'd be happy to meet me with it somewhere to save me the trip. We arrange a meeting place.
The back glass is really dirty, no way to tell if it was scratched because of the layer of green crud that has been manifesting on it as a result of the car sitting in the woods for the last who knows how many years. I start cleaning the thing, and no sooner do I get the back side clean, I find a large vertical scratch right in the middle of the glass. Evidently, the PO had some sticker there, and must have used a steak knife to gouge it off.
I called Beaky.
He more or less tells me I can either return the glass to him for a full refund ( minus a 2 hour round trip to get it there and back) or I could keep it. It was off of a JY car after all. I told him that I was expecting a perfect piece of glass for 100.00 and clearly this is not. could he discount it accordingly?
Nope.
Always kills me when somebody would rather give out a full refund, and sit on something that may never sell, as opposed to keeping it sold and coming off the price. Especially when I could prove that it wasn't as represented.
By now the glass is spotless save for the scratch. I told the guy that it wasn't what I expected, but I'd keep it. He said that he'd make it good on future purchases. ( Like I'm gonna go back up there for.......what?)
I don't know if you can see this scratch, the pic probably wont show it.
But it's there, believe me when I tell you. About 8" long, right in the middle, running north and south.
I though about it for a while, and I decided to fix it.
I did what your mommie always did when you got a scratch.......
I put a band aid on it.
This was one of the first gen Cyclone decals that I had made that was too big for the front fender. Covered the scratch almost completely.
I put the thing in the box with the windshield, There is soo much bubblewrap between the two and all around the sides, It seems like the safest place I could store the thing.
Did Rock Auto end up giving you the windshield?
Awesome job on the rear seat delete / sub box
Awesome job on the rear seat delete / sub box
Not zackly.
They shipped it for 200.00 total. seemed like I could make that work, called a friend, he confirmed he'd install it, (case of beer labor fee) It's all good.
Thanks, It's not a sub box. It's a little japanese kid sitting in a car seat.
Look at all that wasted space! How dare you, all this money you squander away on a car and you can't afford to adopt more than one kid?! You even put him in a tiny car seat! For shame Mike, for shame......
Yeah, originally for the sake of symmetry I was considering one on each side. Then I thought better of it. As expensive as it is to raise a kid to the age of 18 these days, and the thought that they might attend my funeral before I attend their graduation, I elected to go with just one. Now I got room for his dog too.Look at all that wasted space! How dare you, all this money you squander away on a car and you can't afford to adopt more than one kid?! You even put him in a tiny car seat! For shame Mike, for shame......
Seriously though.
This is a 12" sub. It's entire purpose is to round out the sound curve in the car, and give me the bottom end, and punch that I want. It'll compliment the 6.5" component speakers that'll go in my doors. I am a music aficionado and it's been my business since 1980. I know what a good sounding audio system sounds like.
I don't need an additional 12" sub to rattle my grille
, the one will be more than enough. I prefer the system be accurate and well rounded, as opposed to excessively boomy, so that sub will never see it's full potential, as it'll probably be turned down as opposed to the other way. In the grand scheme of things, I probably could've built a much better box if I really wanted the sub to sound as good as it can, but again,...it's never gonna see it's full potential anyway, so my little kid booster seat is just gonna have to do.But you see the "other" system every day.
Twin 12's in the back of a ranger extended cab, or,....I don't know, a convertible fox Mustang. All luggin around this honkin 250 lb box that fills up the entire cargo space, or back seat w/ little or no thought given as how to balance out that elephant behind them w/ the rest of the system that they only allocate room in the dash or doors to fill. It'd be one thing if the door was also sacrificed, and a custom panel was built to allow for a complex system to handle mid bass, bass, midrange, and high frequency on par with the howitzer that is now directly behind them, but that typically isn't what you see, or what that guy wants anyway.
He want's to be heard coming from 2 blocks away.
Now, I don't know,..maybe you're not that guy. Maybe somehow, you took a car that typically is a bad platform to try and make sound good, (because of the convertible top) and made it sound good. Maybe you put the top up, and had one of those guys w/ one of those tweeky little gadgets that allow them to analyze your sound system, and make the appropriate adjustments to whatever else besides your amps that allows them to compensate for the bad acoustics. Maybe your doors have these custom built stand off boxes filled with all kinds of custom designed drivers, because after all,....it's a convertible. You got no room for anything additional back there except the top.
But then again,........maybe not.
One little japanese kid will be more than enough, and he's all safe and properly restrained to keep his 40 lb self from becoming a missile if he was ever forced to stop when he wasn't expecting it.
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Your right, and I did. Custom door panels extra tweets, and the dash. Overpowered system turned down, loud and clean. Well clean to me, I'm no audio expert I just know what sounds good.Yeah, originally for the sake of symmetry I was considering one on each side. Then I thought better of it. As expensive as it is to raise a kid to the age of 18 these days, and the thought that they might attend my funeral before I attend their graduation, I elected to go with just one. Now I got room for his dog too.
Seriously though.
This is a 12" sub. It's entire purpose is to round out the sound curve in the car, and give me the bottom end, and punch that I want. It'll compliment the 6.5" component speakers that'll go in my doors. I am a music aficionado and it's been my business since 1980. I know what a good sounding audio system sounds like.
I don't need an additional 12" sub to rattle my grille
But you see the "other" system every day.
Twin 12's in the back of a ranger extended cab, or,....I don't know, a convertible fox Mustang. All luggin around this honkin 250 lb box that fills up the entire cargo space, or back seat w/ little or no thought given as how to balance out that elephant behind them w/ the rest of the system that they only allocate room in the dash or doors to fill. It'd be one thing if the door was also sacrificed, and a custom panel was built to allow for a complex system to handle mid bass, bass, midrange, and high frequency on par with the howitzer that is now directly behind them, but that typically isn't what you see, or what that guy wants anyway.
He want's to be heard coming from 2 blocks away.
Now, I don't know,..maybe you're not that guy. Maybe somehow, you took a car that typically is a bad platform to try and make sound good, (because of the convertible top) and made it sound good. Maybe you put the top up, and had one of those guys w/ one of those tweeky little gadgets that allow them to analyze your sound system, and make the appropriate adjustments to whatever else besides your amps that allows them to compensate for the bad acoustics. Maybe your doors have these custom built stand off boxes filled with all kinds of custom designed drivers, because after all,....it's a convertible. You got no room for anything additional back there except the top.
But then again,........maybe not.
One little japanese kid will be more than enough, and he's all safe and properly restrained to keep his 40 lb self from becoming a missile if he was ever forced to stop when he wasn't expecting it.
Now back to our regularly scheduled reanting.
I really honestly thought you decided to adopt a human being for some reason. Thank the Lord you are not the male influence on more than two lads that roam the land. There is enough hate in this world already! But anyway, your set up looks nice, and clearly you know what you are doing. I cant say that I have ever heard a sub in the passenger compartment that sounds good, but it sure sounds like you know your stuff. I wish I could find a post I made back in like 2007 when I put a giant sub box in place of my back seat in my '95. Like I said before, the subs facing in the passenger area sounded like crap, because I dont know chit about tuning a stereo properly. These days I enjoy my factory stereo, with the exception of upgraded 6x8's in my doors. One day after the car has a twin screw, and my house is fully remodeled, then I may pay someone like you to install a properly set up stereo in my whip.
And I think that glass looks pretty damn clean for coming out of a junk yard car. The sticker works, and I dont even see a scratch behind it in the close up pic. Sure better than not being able to find one for a car that is definitely not all over the road anymore.
And I think that glass looks pretty damn clean for coming out of a junk yard car. The sticker works, and I dont even see a scratch behind it in the close up pic. Sure better than not being able to find one for a car that is definitely not all over the road anymore.
I don't know everything about car audio. Matter of fact, it isn't my field of expertise. Home audio is. But I have heard enough bad systems to know what a good one is supposed to sound like. However that isn't what most guys want when they put this crap in their cars anyway. They want their noses to bleed. Just like every surround system install that has a subwoofer and rear channel speakers, the guy is always wanting the sub turned up past the point where it was eq'd, and the rear speakers as loud, if not louder than the fronts, despite how " wrong" it is.
As for the glass, the pic is after I cleaned and buffed it. They say that you can't buff out glass, maybe you can't. But I sure made it shiny.
I prefer a sealed box with a nice tight bass compared to a ported box that rattles the trunk. Just sounds gross to me. I've had two jl 10's in a truck and they sound very nice. They were turned down as well quite a bit and the boxes were fairly slim stuffed with pillow stuffing. Nice and crisp.
I run sealed boxes on all my speakers, even if it is just a fiberglass bowl behind a mid range driver. Batting is your best friend if you experience distortion, 50% fill of the enclosure works well.
After thorough self examination, I've decided that somewhere back in time there must've been a crab in my particular evolutionary chain of events. Seems that lately, I prefer to move sideways as opposed to straight ahead.
The last few days have been rainy, and the garage door has to stay down because of it because of all of the bare metal. When that door is down, I may as well not even bother to go down there. There is so much junk crammed into just about every inch, that there is absolutely no room to work. Nonetheless, I went down there Tuesday, and again on Wednesday and sat in the 18" between the tail of the car, and the garage door and attempted something. Needless to say, nothing happened. Actually, the only thing that did happen was I managed to absolutely trash two pairs of jeans after only about an hour each day as a result of sitting w/ my legs under the rear of the car and just getting covered in bondo dust.
Today, I decided that I wasn't gonna get covered in bondo dust. It was a nice day, the door was open and I could drag anything, and everything out of the garage to make room for whatever project I set my mind to.
I left it all right where it sat.
Instead, I grubbed around for the head lights, the bucket assemblies, and the turn signals. I decided that I would spend however much time as required to completely refurbish the stuff, and install my new Halogen headlights on the slim premise that I may get to see what the "Angel Eyes" halo that surrounds the main head light might look like illuminated.
Now,.......as you've just read that,.......How much time should I set aside to clean, sand, paint, and do whatever else is required to make a set of halogen replacement lights fit where the old sealed beams used to go?
A couple of hours?
A half day?
The whole day?
It's not done yet?
If you picked the last, you'd be right. First we gotta talk about the "issues"
In 1978 Fairmont had clear front turn signal lenses. Mine coincidentally are junk. One is cracked, and the other is broken. I say all this because I actually like the clear lenses, over all of the subsequent years that had amber pieces. While that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, considering that mine are un-usable the fact of the matter is that clear lenses are easier to duplicate ( if that's what I can call it) than amber. Purely because polycarbonate (i.e. Lexan) comes in clear.
Nextly, the headlight assy's had probably never had an occasion to be removed since they were installed at the factory. Not only was there dirt and grime as a tell tale as proof of that, there was also that orange kinda junk that happens when somebody lives on a dirt road, and something never sees the business end of a soapy rag. Add to that that the car had been previously repainted, was poorly masked, and the resulting yellow overspray was all over the things as well.
Lastly, there is other broken junk. One mounting point for the outer trim ring is gone, and the three little cushions that each headlight bucket rides on have broken.
So,...there you have it. I was gonna do all this junk and get another "diversion" behind me so that there will be one less thing to have at the end of the road to worry about.
Undeterred,.....I started the process. ( I actually moved forward to do this).
One housing cleaned, stripped of the old yeller paint, and resprayed. Notice the broke assed tab in the upper left corner. If you look to the center of the headlight area, you can see whats left of the factory supplied hard plastic bucket cusions.
And here's what I did to fix them.
When I was looking for something to use as a substitute for the factory cushions, the problem was how to hold them in place. Originally, I was planning on on countersinking a screw into some small chinky-doo piece of plastic. Then I saw these things hangin' on the hook at AZ. I figured what the hell. Easy to mount, easy to replace, and adjustable if they turn out to be too shallow. I bought a box of 15 for the 12 pieces that needed fixin'
The next thing you have to do is enlarge the hole in the back of each bucket fro the grommet that is on the tail of the new headlight. That was straightforward enough. A red, right turning pair of tin snips, and a die grinder w/ a flap wheel to smooth the burrs made short work of that.
However, If you decide to do this, you'll find out that cutting the buckets isn't all you gotta cut.
Again, if you have the right tools (in this case a die grinder w/ an aluminum cutting burr) clearancing that plastic that is hanging in the way takes less than a minute. Just know that you're gonna have to do it.
By mid day, I had to wait on paint to dry. I had already cleaned up the TS housings, and was trying to decide what to do about replacing the lens. Even though it isn't that thick, the old lens stands off the housing 1/2". Made sense to me to simply have a piece of lexan cut to fit the housing that was 1/2" thick. Granted, a little thick, but at this point, I'm not gonna try and glue acrylic together for the sake of keeping it similar to the factory lens.
I called the local plastics dude, asked if he could cut me a couple of small pieces while I waited, he said that he could, so I went on down.
And almost had a stroke when he charged me 33.00 for those two small pieces. I managed not to just the same.
When I got back, everything was still too tacky to handle, so, I went about modifying the TS housings to allow me to fit that thick assed piece of lexan on top.
See the problem is that there are two stand offs at each end, and one big diivider thingy in the middle, Now grinding off the end pieces was no problem, but if I just did that to the center, I'd break through so I had to fill it before I could grind it.
Filled from behind w/ standard body filler.
Then I ground on the thing. When I got it close I stopped and moved over to Mikes's bench sander.
80 grit long board paper, stuck to the garage floor.
after about a minute of that, you get this.
Painted, and shiny, w/ my still wrapped coke bottle lens on edge for effect.
By now it's late, but I'm able to finally put the headlights in the buckets, and screw the trim rings on.
This is about as good as a set of fairmont lights are gonna get. You can see the blue reflection from the H4 bulbs behind the reflector. Not important today, but those blue bulbs will eventually hit the thrash can, in favor of a standard white light.
Now it's dark. I wire nut the wires together, and form a pigtail that'll allow me to wire up the angel eyes, and see what the're gonna look like. The pic in the Summit catalog showed light completely surrounding the perimeter.
I got something a little different...
Again,.......the camera doesn't really tell the truth. Ther are 2 leds on op, and two on bottom. I guess the light is supposed to "beam" through the perimeter tube thingy ala fiber optics, but it don't exactly work that way.
Im ok with it, It's different.
And anybody who knows me, knows that that is what I'm all about.
What left is to decide what to do to the thick piece of lexan before I permanently glue that to the housing. I can sand the backside, or I bead blast it to "frost" it so it's no longer see through.
or I can leave it as is, and install amber led 1157's.
I can also find some window film, and apply it to the back side that would act as a diffuser. The stuff I'm finding isn't permanent though, and can be removed. I don't want this stuff coming off inside a glued together housing, so,....I'm kinda up in the air.
The last few days have been rainy, and the garage door has to stay down because of it because of all of the bare metal. When that door is down, I may as well not even bother to go down there. There is so much junk crammed into just about every inch, that there is absolutely no room to work. Nonetheless, I went down there Tuesday, and again on Wednesday and sat in the 18" between the tail of the car, and the garage door and attempted something. Needless to say, nothing happened. Actually, the only thing that did happen was I managed to absolutely trash two pairs of jeans after only about an hour each day as a result of sitting w/ my legs under the rear of the car and just getting covered in bondo dust.
Today, I decided that I wasn't gonna get covered in bondo dust. It was a nice day, the door was open and I could drag anything, and everything out of the garage to make room for whatever project I set my mind to.
I left it all right where it sat.
Instead, I grubbed around for the head lights, the bucket assemblies, and the turn signals. I decided that I would spend however much time as required to completely refurbish the stuff, and install my new Halogen headlights on the slim premise that I may get to see what the "Angel Eyes" halo that surrounds the main head light might look like illuminated.
Now,.......as you've just read that,.......How much time should I set aside to clean, sand, paint, and do whatever else is required to make a set of halogen replacement lights fit where the old sealed beams used to go?
A couple of hours?
A half day?
The whole day?
It's not done yet?
If you picked the last, you'd be right. First we gotta talk about the "issues"
In 1978 Fairmont had clear front turn signal lenses. Mine coincidentally are junk. One is cracked, and the other is broken. I say all this because I actually like the clear lenses, over all of the subsequent years that had amber pieces. While that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, considering that mine are un-usable the fact of the matter is that clear lenses are easier to duplicate ( if that's what I can call it) than amber. Purely because polycarbonate (i.e. Lexan) comes in clear.
Nextly, the headlight assy's had probably never had an occasion to be removed since they were installed at the factory. Not only was there dirt and grime as a tell tale as proof of that, there was also that orange kinda junk that happens when somebody lives on a dirt road, and something never sees the business end of a soapy rag. Add to that that the car had been previously repainted, was poorly masked, and the resulting yellow overspray was all over the things as well.
Lastly, there is other broken junk. One mounting point for the outer trim ring is gone, and the three little cushions that each headlight bucket rides on have broken.
So,...there you have it. I was gonna do all this junk and get another "diversion" behind me so that there will be one less thing to have at the end of the road to worry about.
Undeterred,.....I started the process. ( I actually moved forward to do this).
One housing cleaned, stripped of the old yeller paint, and resprayed. Notice the broke assed tab in the upper left corner. If you look to the center of the headlight area, you can see whats left of the factory supplied hard plastic bucket cusions.
And here's what I did to fix them.
When I was looking for something to use as a substitute for the factory cushions, the problem was how to hold them in place. Originally, I was planning on on countersinking a screw into some small chinky-doo piece of plastic. Then I saw these things hangin' on the hook at AZ. I figured what the hell. Easy to mount, easy to replace, and adjustable if they turn out to be too shallow. I bought a box of 15 for the 12 pieces that needed fixin'
The next thing you have to do is enlarge the hole in the back of each bucket fro the grommet that is on the tail of the new headlight. That was straightforward enough. A red, right turning pair of tin snips, and a die grinder w/ a flap wheel to smooth the burrs made short work of that.
However, If you decide to do this, you'll find out that cutting the buckets isn't all you gotta cut.
Again, if you have the right tools (in this case a die grinder w/ an aluminum cutting burr) clearancing that plastic that is hanging in the way takes less than a minute. Just know that you're gonna have to do it.
By mid day, I had to wait on paint to dry. I had already cleaned up the TS housings, and was trying to decide what to do about replacing the lens. Even though it isn't that thick, the old lens stands off the housing 1/2". Made sense to me to simply have a piece of lexan cut to fit the housing that was 1/2" thick. Granted, a little thick, but at this point, I'm not gonna try and glue acrylic together for the sake of keeping it similar to the factory lens.
I called the local plastics dude, asked if he could cut me a couple of small pieces while I waited, he said that he could, so I went on down.
And almost had a stroke when he charged me 33.00 for those two small pieces. I managed not to just the same.
When I got back, everything was still too tacky to handle, so, I went about modifying the TS housings to allow me to fit that thick assed piece of lexan on top.
See the problem is that there are two stand offs at each end, and one big diivider thingy in the middle, Now grinding off the end pieces was no problem, but if I just did that to the center, I'd break through so I had to fill it before I could grind it.
Filled from behind w/ standard body filler.
Then I ground on the thing. When I got it close I stopped and moved over to Mikes's bench sander.
80 grit long board paper, stuck to the garage floor.
after about a minute of that, you get this.
Painted, and shiny, w/ my still wrapped coke bottle lens on edge for effect.
By now it's late, but I'm able to finally put the headlights in the buckets, and screw the trim rings on.
This is about as good as a set of fairmont lights are gonna get. You can see the blue reflection from the H4 bulbs behind the reflector. Not important today, but those blue bulbs will eventually hit the thrash can, in favor of a standard white light.
Now it's dark. I wire nut the wires together, and form a pigtail that'll allow me to wire up the angel eyes, and see what the're gonna look like. The pic in the Summit catalog showed light completely surrounding the perimeter.
I got something a little different...
Again,.......the camera doesn't really tell the truth. Ther are 2 leds on op, and two on bottom. I guess the light is supposed to "beam" through the perimeter tube thingy ala fiber optics, but it don't exactly work that way.
Im ok with it, It's different.
And anybody who knows me, knows that that is what I'm all about.
What left is to decide what to do to the thick piece of lexan before I permanently glue that to the housing. I can sand the backside, or I bead blast it to "frost" it so it's no longer see through.
or I can leave it as is, and install amber led 1157's.
I can also find some window film, and apply it to the back side that would act as a diffuser. The stuff I'm finding isn't permanent though, and can be removed. I don't want this stuff coming off inside a glued together housing, so,....I'm kinda up in the air.
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