Taillight Selection and Installation
It took a while, but we finally decided which taillights
we're going to use. You may not like them. This isn't
your car. This is our car. There are so many different
taillights on the market now- for traditional there's
the '38/9 Ford "teardrop" lights, the '42-'48
Ford lights, the '37 Ford bullet shaped lights, and
then there's '50 Pontiac lights. the new ones have
a shorter bucket, a glass lens, and the bulb is centered
for optimal visibility. Safety is highest on our list
of priorities for building this car, along with keeping
a common theme. LED taillights, for instance, would
not suit this car. '39 Ford lights don't fit well
below the deck lid on a coupe without cutting into
the bottom body line. Plus, we think the Pontiac lights
look darn good. Here's how we installed them. |
| Selecting
a Location |
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| Once we decided what taillights
to use, we had to decide how far out from the center
to mount them. We thought that mounting them too far
'in' would make the car look thin and tall. There
was only so far that we could go 'out' before the
body curves too much and they would appear the opposite
of cross-eyed. The resting spot was decided- in line
with the outside edges of the rear window frame. We
also needed to center them top-to-bottom. This was
done by applying masking tape to the approximate area
the taillights would end up in, and then measuring
from the trunk lip to the top of the rear body line.
We "eyeballed" the light, trying to get
it as close to an imaginary line straight down from
the outside edge of the rear window. When it looked
right, we measured over from the side of the trunk
and repeated that dimension on the passenger side.
The long horizontal line is so that the mounting holes
can be on the same line. |
Mounting Hole Location |
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| Here I'm measuring the
mounting hole position. You'll want to do this before
you drill the hole for the light so you still have
a center. We used a meter (or yard) stick to draw
the horizontal line - it conforms to the curve of
the body. |
Drilling the Hole |
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| The moment of truth. Did I do it right?
Tune in next week to find out! Or just look at the
next picture. |
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The FInished Product |
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Looks pretty good
to me. The lights make it look nice and low. |
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