Anyone out there have a tube grill on a 55 or 56? Previous owner painted all the chrome parts body color on my car. I am looking into tube grills to help cut some of the cost and because I think they look pretty cool. Anyway, what do you do about turn signals and parking lights? I saw a pic of one car that had little lights mounted in front of the grill on the valance or pan or whatever you call it. Thinking they would look better behind the grill...but that looks like it would make bulb changes a pain in the ****. Any info would be appreciated...
I built a tube grill out of aluminum rods and used 55 Ford Parklites (lens and backing plate bulb holder only) not the large housing. They are mounted to the front of the grill. It looks like the 55-56 tbird park lights.
I installed a tube grille for this year. I used two amber LED strips per side. They were each 7" x 3/4". A simple bracket fabricated located them between the tubes on the grille and are easily seen when used. Just added a photo to this album for you to see.
Thanks for the info! I think the LEDs may be more the way I will go, want to kind of keep the lights hidden but be able to have people see that I am turning and LEDs last forever so bulb changes would hopefully be few and far between. I did see some tri-bar headlights that allow you to convert from the standard sealed beams to a replaceable bulb. They have a small amber light built into the bottom of them. This part from Speedway is the closest to what I mean: http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Garag...eBase&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=GoogleBase Not sure how they would look though...
I have those lights on my t-bucket and I like them but others don't. They sure are sweet if you don't have/want a separate turn light.
Just for reference in the future, I am adding this link to the thread now that Butch is selling some http://www.butchscoolstuff.com/store/cart.php?m=product_list&c=68
reference is on thing. to those that can afford it, i say congratulations. im still on a beer budget, and prefer more reasonable parts. they now have halo lights for cars with 7 inch headlights. saw them in a recent edition of either street rod or rod and custom. those are iirc about 80 bucks per light.
Found a pic of my friend's ride with a tube grille, in case you are interested Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Normally I'm not a huge fan of tube grilles, but his car is just incredible. It definitely works on his. Here's another pic- don't mean to hijack. Uploaded with ImageShack.us
So what happens with the parking lights on the 56 with these tube grills? I know you could build around them, it just seems like all the tube grills I see are like this, no parking lights. I like the parking lights, especially since mine are all rechromed now
maybe they could be mounted behind grill, ala 69 camaro headlight doors. or, with the smallness of lights today, maybe one could modify one of the grill bars and install some led lights in the grill bar itself. or, invest in the headlights that have the turn signal/parking light interated into i already. i think southern rod products carries them, but i dont have one of my street rodder magazines handy.
Butch gets such big bucks for the grilles since they are Stainless,"back in the day" tube grilles were made from chrome tubing and cost around $29.95 ,if you want to DIY your own check out a wholesale plumbing supply for bulk chrome tubing,guys in my High School Auto Shop cl*** built their own that way,back in the early 60's.
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