Custom brake and chase lights

Hello.

Im overhauling a fiberglass bed shell that came factory equipped with a little LED strip third eye. I'm doing a pretty shitty job of glassing in the original hole, but everybody has.to start learning somewhere.



I got my hands on a small pile of vintage armored side markers, and since they were mint in box New Old Stock, I of course butchered the shit out of them.



The plan is to space the four of them evenly, with the reds of course wired to the brakes and the yellows outboard, and switch-selectable as chase lights. I still need to retrofit the housings with an appropriate socket and LED bulbs, but it's not quite time for that step yet.

 

I picked up these rubber grommet style T10 sockets to run in the chase lights, and a 10 pack of T10 LED license plate lights. You can see side by side here that the rubber trimmed nicely into an integral gasket. It will not need the backside support of the tapered style grommet in this application.

That "gasket" will go between the Floorplate of the light, which has a slight recess, and the face of the shell. We will see if the socket connectors withstand the force of me smashing the "gasket" down to fit the shallower recessed space.

The lights also came with lightly rubberized fiber gaskets that fit the footprint. I'm going to install those as well, doped with FIPG on both faces.



With the lamp back plates drilled to 1/2" and deburred, and the lamp gaskets (lens and back) in place, it's a perfect fit.

I'll drill the center holes on the shell, scare up some brass hardware that fits, and get them mounted.



Cleaned up the 8-32 x 3/4" brass screws with 400 grit and gave them a hit of clear.



The fiber gasket seals to the shell with FIPG on both sides, since the surface is slightly curved and the plates are flat. Used decorative washers on both sides with Nylock nuts on the interior. The decorative washers are for two reasons - firstly and primarily, because fancy. The only rule about being extra (which these lights are) is if you're going to do it, do it all the way. The second reason is that I can torque these just until the decorative washer begins to deform, which will spring load the fastener and put a consistent pressure on the fiber gasket and FIPG.




This interior gasket seals the lens to the front face of the backing plate. No leak path. The outer body of the shell has drain holes. Doing it this way is clever - less to seal, less to leak.



Tidy up FIPG while it's wet with a paper towel well wet with denatured alcohol. I will point out that I was extremely anal retentive here - note the screw head directions as well as the orientation of all of the SAE markings. If you're going to be extra, do it all the way.



The money shots.