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1G 1g tail light mod [Merged 2-8]

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Well, some pontiacs like the sunfire and the Fiero GT have Illuminated logos... I was always thinkin about doing this to the eclipse center peice... and now I have done it! The peice isn't finished yet, since I dont have a light to put behind the red lens... but here it is with backlighting from the window.
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That is cool. Will you do a write up so we can see how it was done. Do you think it will be legal to have a orange light? now that will match my cars color. Or would you rather see me rideing around with alteza hmm
 
Well, the lens is Red... So the only way you'd be able to get an orange light, is to locate yourself a clear center peice... you know the ones that came with the old Clear Tail Lights... You could use an Allteza Center peice also... but lighting might be a little different... And then you'd have to go out and buy either a Vinyl that matches the same size and font of the ECLIPSE Logo, or use the new ECLIPSE logo from the 4th gens... Center it properly, install it as a mask and then paint over it... then you'll have to remove the mask asap cause if you let it dry, you risk damaging the logo quicker and easier.

I'll try doing this with an Alltezza Center peice as soon as I can get ahold of one.

As far as a write up... Its quite simple... I'll post pics as soon as Curtis gives me his center peice in trade for this one.

But what you do is. Locate the paint of your choice and clear coat of your choice... You can paint match it to your car or whatever you chose to do. Take out the center peice and get some news paper for protecting your car... Put the News paper in the hole flat so your car is protected, then push the center peice back over and bolt it down on the 4 corners alone just so it holds... Then start painting the center peice, over the stock ECLIPSE Badge, Between coats, allow atleast 2 minutes just so the paint dry's a little bit... you dont wan't it to dry all the way... Add as many coats as your happy with.

Now onto the hard and scary part, Removing the ECLIPSE Badge. The paint is still wet during this process, so you MUST, MUST!!! Be very very careful. If you touch the paint, you screw it all up! Take a knife... something very stiff so its easier to work with, and slowly put the knife at the end of one of the letters, and push it under safely, Start to work the Letters up until you can grab them with your fingers and pull them off. Apply the same thing you did to the first letter to the others until they are all off safely!

After you get the letters off... you can pull the center Tail out of the car or let it sit there to dry... Then you are going to want to clear coat it... This is just for looks and safety... you dont want to wash this peice and screw everything up cause the clear coat will cover the area you just pulled the letters off.

Now you have a nice looking center! Onto illumination... After you allow the proper time for the paint to dry, Heat your oven to 250 degrees... place the center inside the oven just for a few minutes, there isn't much glue on this... but you dont want to risk damaging it. Use a butter knife to get into the edges to unlock the lens from the base and pull the red/painted lens out. You will be installing lights here.

Now you need to sand down the inside of this. There is a reflective paint covering it all so light wont pass through. Its very easy to sand down... To get all the paint off, I'd sugjest using a wire brush... it will get in the grooves very nicely! If not you will have an LED sort of look to it as you see in my peice. Now light will flow through!!! Your ready to install lights!

To get the proper light, you will need to paint the inside of the base a Reflective color... Silver... That wanna Be Chrome stuff works GREAT!, or any other kinda of Reflective Paint you choose.

The peice is like 24" long. So you need atleast ONE White or RED Neon Tube (Prefibly white) to install inside. There is not much room to work with, so make sure its not severely fat. You could install seperate smaller lights with ease as well...
Inside of Curtis's peice, I am going to install 2 of these from Ebay, 48CM PVC LIGHT STRIPE/STRIP
One of them on top pointing downward, and one on the bottom pointing upward... The light should be VERY bright with this but wont be soo bright that its illigal. It will just be very well displaced light! You can wire these into anything you want... Parking light, Parking Light/Brake Light for an added look as a 3rd Brake Light... OR, you could do what Pontiacs do... The logo will light up when you turn the key to the ON Position.

I will be installing Curtis's to the ON Position Switch... just for an OEM Feel since he doesn't want it to be too fancy.

As for mine, mine will be wired into a few different switches, which will be powered by the ON Position Switch... Cause mine is going to be a show off.

This is just a quick write up... I'll work on something professional with pictures to put inside the FAQ/How-To area for all to view!
 
This is a GREAT idea! I think that I might lean towards using vinyl letters so that it's easier to peel off while the paint is still tacky. Also, that way you can put whatever you want on the back... How bout having the word 'turbo' on there hooked up to your brake light so that when you smoke that Mustang GT and finally hit the brakes, he'll know why he lost.

LOL Or... have it hooked up to a switch like Infinite said and when you flip it, your taillight reads: "LOSER" :ROFL:

This would obviously be best if it was smoked out so that you couldn't read it until it lit up.
 
No dude! There's a license plate frame that you can program like 20 words or sentenses into and its remote fed... I almost wanna get that just to piss off people behind me...Sayin things like... "Do you really think honking is effecting me? Go 'F' Yourself! Your Mom Regrets You!

Hehe! Ok, gotta try to win tickets to KoRn, Flyleaf and Evanescence. BRB.
 
I'm inspired to do it now.
I need to get out of the appearance forum, you guys are giving me too many good ideas.
 
It took me a while to actually do it... I used to own a Pontiac Fiero that I did a cool little show in the back PONTIAC lights in the tails.... And I thought why the hell not? So I finally did it... I'm still waiting for my center peice so I can make mine.
 
EDM95 said:
Nice:thumb:
Click to expand...

LOL I've been waiting for you LOL. It will be much brighter... Nothing is mounted inside... so the light strip is probably upside down... when I get a chance, either tomorrow afternoon or the day after, I'm going to make an angled mount, so the LED's point towards the reflective point, directly behind the ECLIPSE letters, making them light up brighter. I'm also going to temp glue the led's directly behind the letters, to see how they look...
 
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