RedraifExtras's 1987 Pontiac Firebird on CarDomain

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CLEAR REAR SIDE MARKER LIGHTS
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Lit! Need red bulbs I know! Got them in just need pics!

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There is no aftermarket resource for this light. No the front will not fit in the rear. There may be an outside chance that some lense somewhere might be close, but I had no luck, esp not in the clear lense market! So yet again I had to make my own!

First, I got a spare set of factory rear lenses from a junk yard car. No sence ruining mine and haveing no way back to stock if this did not work. The second task was to find a clear lense off another junkyard car that would work as a donor for my new lense.

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Disassembly
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As I don't have any pics of the light coming off I will have to start pictures at the point with the assembly removed from the car.

The backside of the lights are located in the rear fenders of the car. Ther passenger side can be accessed via the spare tire compartment. The driver side is accessed under the rear plastic paneling. I removed the cardboard "glove box" for my CD changer, so for me it was easy. I just opened the door in the rear cargo area and reached in and found the stamped nuts and removed them. Then I removed the bulbs socket from the back of the light.

From there is was simply a matter of gently pushing the studs out and holding the metal rim from the outside till it dropped into my hands!

NOTE!!!:
These lights are NOT interchangable with interchangable trim rings. There is a definate left and right to these pieces. DO NOT mix them up, or you might have to redo the whole thing!

This is the assembly as it looks on the car.

Here is how the metal trim ring separates from the light. What you have to do is separate the outer metal trim ring that contains the mounting studs. Just a even gentle push to the studs is all it will take!

Here you see the rubber seal that sits on the face of the outer edge of the light to keep moisture out of the car.

Here is is off the light...

Here is the light w/o the seal...

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Deconstruction
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Cutting up the stockers! So my first task was to try and remove the old red lense, as whole as possible so I could use it as a guide to create a clear version of it! It was really stuck in there so I decided the best thing to do was to go one assembly as a time, that way I could use the other side as a template for the new one.

Since the red lense was either bonded or melted to the white lense backing, a simple prying at the edge of the red was not going to work w/o breaking the white backing. The white I needed intact to mount my new clear lense into. So my only solution was to cut a hole in the red lense and see if I could, with better leverage, pry the pieces apart!

As you can see it worked. I still had to be careful to not damage the white housing.

I cleaned out all the remaining chips. Any pieces that would not come loose were gently grinded out with my dremel & a grinding stone. I had to be very careful since the dremel will eat thru the plastic FAST!

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Reconstruction
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I looked at how yellowed the housing was underneath. I had to do something or the old yellowed casing would show thru the clears!

I debated on just painting it back white and then thought of a better solution. One thing that the old lense had that this one would not is a reflective insert. So I needed to create a reflective quality. So I decided that a silver backing would do best. For maximum reflectivness I opted for aluminum ducting tape.

Plus, since it is a metal tape, it is actually has the same bendable qualities like aluminum foil.

First I decided that I wanted the entire inside of the housing to be filled with this tape. Here it is being placed in the hole. Again this tape is mallable like aluminum foil.

I was first concerned with getting the top and bottom of the housing covered. I cut a piece to the general length of the inner housing, centered it, and only stuck it down in the center. I worked from the outermost edge in the center towards the back and then slowly out to the sides. This gave my a nice flat stick with no bubbles.

You can see it forming and laying down as I go. This is how the first strip layed when I was done

Here I had flipped it over to lay in the other...

The final strip in across the back was simple. The tape was very close to the exact width of the housing inner dimension. So I simply cut a piece long enough to cover the entire inner and went from one side to the other dead center.

Remember to cut out the opening for the bulb socket.

I opted to cut the tape in a x and fold it back thru the hole, letting it stick to backside of the housing to be sure when the light socket went in and locked in place it would not rip the aluminum tape loose from the housing on the inside.

You can see how it relects the light quite well.

The edges are a bit messy, but since the metal exterior trim ring would only allow the recessed portion to even be seen, it was not a big deal.

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Donor lense
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So here was the clear lense I found at the junkyard. It turned out that it was long enough that one lense could do both sides of the car. This assembly came off the front of some 80s sedan.

I took a dremel cut off wheel and cut in between the lense and housing to separate them w/o risking the lense cracking by prying them apart.

Here you can see the cut

And finally separated from the housing!

So I cut the lense in half...

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Sculpting the Donor lense
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The idea was to duplicate the step the orginal lense had in it from the factory. See the center of the lense actually pertruded up thru the metal retaining trim ring on the exterior of the car.

So first I had to be sure the lense was thick enough that I could file and dremel it down to even work. It was just thick enough so I proceeded.

Now I first trimmed the exterior to be sure it fit right in the housing. I had to also install holes for the metal trim ring's studs.

Once the holes were made I installed the trim ring over the assembly so I could mark where the area was that needed to protrude thru the trim ring and what area needed to be filed down...

I traced the inside edge of the trim ring on the new clear plastic lense. I then started to whittle down the edge that had to sit beneath the trim ring. You can see it coming along

I used a combination of the dremel with a grinding stone, and a flat file. Again be careful with the dremel, it very quickly removes material. Wear safty glasses!!! this stuff is nasty when it goes flying, and the plastic particles are way hot! The file was to be sure I kept the edges I was cuting flat and level. I used it to get the high spots when I had roughed it in with the dremel. It worked great to clean up the edges that fit thru the trim ring.

I watched the whole time to be sure I still had enough material and was not going to got thru the lense and I filed it down for the trim ring. I had to leave it a touch shorter then stock as I ran out of thickness! But it is hardly even noticable.
Here is the final product

Here you can see how much material I had to remove...

In the Housing...

With the trim ring...

Ok now you just ave to go install the assembly back on the car the way it came off!

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On the car!
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Here you can see how the Aluminum tape gave a reflective quality to the light!

Some shots of the whole car!

Some better resolution shots!

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NOTE!
During the construction...Wear safty glasses!

If you attempt this, I can't say what your local law enforcement with think of it! Most don't notice, but I run red LED bubs in mine! Try to get red LEDs as the painted fade and look pink. And face it pink bulbs look stupid! See! LOL!

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