Custom tailight housings

Alrighhty so my second ever HAMB post and first tech article, hopefully it’s worth the server space and your time.

First of all a disclaimer I'm no mechanic, engineer, fabricator, panel beater, welder, race car driver, or 3rd generation Hot Rodder just a really particular art school graduate (fussy arsehole) who’s into cars. There’s probably a bunch of better, and worse ways to do this, some of which I’ll mention as we go but this one worked pretty good for an amateur working in the small garage under his house.

The patient in this case is my 51 Chev 2dr sedan, anyone that’s stared at one of these for a while knows the position of the tiny stock taillights isn’t the best. The 51-52 rear fender also ends kind of abruptly/vertically and doesn’t have the nice flow or fade of the earlier 49 – 50.



After consulting with R & D (looking at too many pictures on the internet) I decided 49 Buick taillights could do the job



So after much head scratching and excessive use of magnets, cardboard, masking tape broomsticks, toothpicks and bubblegum to create a mockup I decide to mount them vertically and kind of mimic the shape of the rear fender/tail light transition on my 51 Merc. I’ve already got a nice peak down the front fenders from grafting on 56 Olds headlights and have a bumper swap planned so figure this will tie everything together nicely.

Problem is how do you blend an upside down taillight from another car without it looking like crap when all you have is a couple of these



Easy right, you strap on your sawzall, head to the local antique wrecking yard and slice up the rear quarters of the nearest 49 Buick. Maybe where you live, but not an option for me and even then you end up with a housing that’s the wrong way round and a surround that going to need a lot of work if it’s going to fit your completely different fender.

The solution a not so fancy hammerform and some basic sheetmetal working, I’ve made quite few things now with hammer forms and they’re pretty awesome for those of us that don’t have more specialist equipment like bead rollers, pullmax, yoda hammers, English wheels or a Baileigh magnetic brake.

First off I taped an old coke box to the Buick surround to make a basic template, checking on both sides of each surround, luckily everything turned out to be symmetrical so we just have to make the same piece four times. From this make an MDF template to act as a guide for the plasma cutter taking into account the thickness of the 18G sheetmetal, and cutter nozzle (that will make more sense shortly).


What we’re trying to do is make a recess so the chrome buick surround sits flush with the rear fender, you like things that are smooth right?

So the plan is to make male and female dies, the first piece of the female die (the grey bit) needs to be as thick as the chrome surround + 18G sheet + rubber gasket. The first piece of the male die needs to be as thick as the chrome surround + rubber gasket. I cut these out with the plasma cutter using the mdf template and cleaning up with a flap wheel. I know a plasma cutter’s pretty fancy but you can use a jigsaw if you don’t have one.



Next up grab some heavy plate that will hold up to some BFH pounding clamp it all together checking the fit (remember you need an even gap for the 18G sheet) and drill and tap to accept some small lengths of threaded rod to act as locating dowels



Use the female die, some calipers and a drill to trace and cut your sheetmetal ‘blanks’ allowing enough material for a decent flange for your light and gasket sit in



Then sandwich it altogether in the right order with a bit of oil to help things along and clamp to your sturdiest bench



Hammer progressively back and forth along the length of the tightening the clamps as you go so stuff doesn’t bounce around too much. Resist the urge to try and punch it out in one or two hits this will just warp your sheetmetal and possibly your dies. You don’t actually need to move that much metal so it’s surprisingly easy, once the bank is pressed you’ll hear the sound of your hammering change.

Behold your brilliance, go and brag to your neighbour




By making our dies in pieces like this we can sandwich the sheetmetal blanks where we want to produce both left and right pieces. So flip and repeat

 

Then use whatever you have handy to bend the pieces to follow the shape of the chrome surround


I found I could carefully use the surround like a buck to get it pretty close


However at the top we need to create bit of a compound curve to flow the taillight into the fender nicely so a bit of planishing to stretch it out closest to the pressed edge and some shrinking along the cut edge should do the trick


Now if you’re paying attention you’ll notice I screwed up one of those important . calculations and tolerances I mentioned earlier, not too worry that’s what welders are for


Carefully clamp the two halves to your surround, trim to fit weld and file


Pretty cool huh, but you still need some way to mount them properly with some functioning lights. Grab the leftovers coke box and make another template then transfer to metal. If you’re a chemist or rocket scientist I’m sure you could do something cooler using plastic and or aluminium.

 

Well Scott I am probably lees important than you are and I don't even know much about art at all.

That doesnt change the fact for a not tallent hack you do pretty good work. Good tech my friend, I don't think I know a better way to do it.

 

Drill holes in it to line up with the mounting points on the chrome housing, I drilled a couple of drainage holes for good measure and plan on putting a basic rope seal around the edge so it’s snug and doesn’t squeak or rattle.

A trip to the local u-pull-it yielded some simple twist fit bulb sockets with connector.

Which I had planned on mounting straight to the new reflector plate but realized would out then at a less than ideal angle and too close to the lens

A muffin/cupcake tin should solve that



A bit of drilling filing and trimming is all takes to set these in at the right depth and angle then tack in place and trim off the excess

Insert missing photo (crap) and massive anti climax here

Now even though it would probably be worth another tech article I’d love to show you how to blend these pieces onto the car and the finished article in primer this.... but this was right about when we were robbed and I lost most of my tools and a lot of parts. Then as a double kick in the nuts our landlord kicked us out while I was wrestling with the insurance company so these housings and my two cars are in storage until I find another workshop and replace my stuff (also why I'm typing on the internet instead of working in the garage)

So stay tuned for the next episode I guess....

 

Very nicely done tech article! I am anxious to see the finished installation. I think that they will look great, and improve the looks of the car.
That is unfortunate that you got hit by scumbags! They are everywhere.

~Alden

 

very cool.. question, do you leave the bulb sockets black or do you paint them some reflective color?

 

MUFFIN TINS!!! That tip alone is worth the price of admission - when I needed a recessed socket I went out to Ye Olde Junkyard and wandered around in the heat until I found another '54 Chevy with taillights intact and cut and welded those to mine. Never realized I could have just hacked a muffin tin instead. You are a genius.

By the way, really sorry you got robbed and evicted. I hope it all works out in the long run.

 

Good job.. Cool tech.. They're going to look great once installed....

 

Great tech tip! Nicely done.

 

brilliant, thats all i can say. the forsight alone is uncommon, to actually pull it off. just brilliant

 

oh man that muffin tin idea is fucking brilliant! this is amazing! sorry to hear about your luck, hopefully things turn around.

 

If you paint the inside of the light body a gloss white you will have the brightest lights possible.

 

right-on

 

Or find old aluminum ones at the theft store,easy to polish up.
Good write though!

 

I Have never been to the theft store, do they have them in ohio?

 

Is this some sort of anvil? Interesting piece, can you tell me more about it? Great tech by the way and sorry to hear about getting ripped off and living situation.

 

Shoe anvil

 

Good Tech Scott.
The artist is coming out aye ...

 

Muffin tin. That is right there is brilliant.

If this doesn't win Tech Week, there should be an honorable mention prize for that. My wife's muffin tins are about to be raided.

 

top work.

 

Great job, wonderful idea with the pans

 

brilliant tech article.....love the idea and the execution.

 

That was cool tech!

 

So what flavour muffins do they have to be?

 

Those stamped parts are very impressive. Wow!

 

I think they call them pawn shops

 

like pasadenahotrod said gloss white is what most have recommended and makes sense since it would have the highest reflective value short of something with more of a mirror finish like the plastic chrome you see on the inside of modern car lights.

I toyed with the idea of industrial chrome but if you really wanted to go that way would probably be better to use something like the chrome vinyl wrap products from 3m and Avery http://autovinylsolutions.com/avery/avery_chrome (not very traditional though )

definitely or there are the ones that have pretty shiny silver plating of some kind, in this instance I didn't want to mess with stuff I couldn't weld nicely with the mig.

Old shoemakers anvil, $5-15 from your nearest swap meet or junk store, hard as hell with a mixture of curves and shapes perfect for shaping small pieces

depends on what colour your going to paint your car, it's CRITICALLY important the flavours don't clash. My car's going to be green so cinnamon, apple and rhubarb were all good options

thanks for the kind words and feedback.

 

Have you seen the Muffin Man? Great idea.

 

Really like it! Nice tech how you did it, had to same idea for awhile...cause I also installed Olds headlights on the front. Couldn´t find a nice pair of 49 taillights

example of how it would look like of do you have another idea?
(photo thanks to Jamcoupe)

 

awesome tech, great work bro