My Latest and Greatest Appearance Mod
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Joined: Dec 2006
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From: SW Florida
My Latest and Greatest Appearance Mod
Well not sure if it'* my "Greatest" Appearance mod, as I have many that I have done that have really made my car unique..but anyways...
Today I was in the process of removing my Halo'* from my fog lights as a cement wall ran into me the other day and broke one of them. Since I now have nothing cool and unique on the front of my car to make it stand out at night until they get here I decided to make some changes.
I took the license plate cover off and drilled holes along the letters in the way so that it looks similar to the honeycomb grill on the car. Since I already had the letters painted black, you really don't even see the holes in the light as the holes make the letters black since it is just darkness behind them. I went ahead touched up the parts that I didn't drill with black paint again to make everything look nice.
I had some led strips laying around that I had used when I did the lights over my license plate. I decided to wire a couple of them to the fog lights so that I can run them with the switch (I have no bulbs in my fogs anymore since I have done the halos instead). I then put the strips behind the plate cover directly behind the drilled out letters. It looked OK, but you could see the single LED'* shinning through and it made it basically unreadable.
This is the kind of lights I used, so you can imagine how it looked seeing the bright individual led'* behind some letters..a mess:
I then moved the strips so that one was above the letters and one below. It looked really good since you could read the letters now, however it just wasn't bright enough, especially when I had the headlights on and shinning right at me.
I tried to think of how to fix this and when I was sitting in my car looking at my dash/gauges all lit up I thought..."hey, there are bulbs directly behind here and you can't see them individually because there is a transparent coating over the letters/numbers that evenly transmits the light"
So I figured all I needed was some transparent material to put over the back of the letters. I knew then what I needed to do. I went inside and got a wax paper baking sheet (things you put on your pans when baking things) and cut a piece to put over the letters. I put the cover back on and here are the results:
And the biggest thing was now it was bright enough so that you can see it with the headlights shinning in your face too.
It looks really cool in person and the wife thought it was cool. I think it was definitely a worthwhile modification. I need to drill out a couple of the holes in the "P" to let some more light in as you can see it looks almost like a D right now. Once I get new halos put in and I drill out the holes I will take more pictures, it should look better yet I think.
Let me know your thoughts
Today I was in the process of removing my Halo'* from my fog lights as a cement wall ran into me the other day and broke one of them. Since I now have nothing cool and unique on the front of my car to make it stand out at night until they get here I decided to make some changes.
I took the license plate cover off and drilled holes along the letters in the way so that it looks similar to the honeycomb grill on the car. Since I already had the letters painted black, you really don't even see the holes in the light as the holes make the letters black since it is just darkness behind them. I went ahead touched up the parts that I didn't drill with black paint again to make everything look nice.
I had some led strips laying around that I had used when I did the lights over my license plate. I decided to wire a couple of them to the fog lights so that I can run them with the switch (I have no bulbs in my fogs anymore since I have done the halos instead). I then put the strips behind the plate cover directly behind the drilled out letters. It looked OK, but you could see the single LED'* shinning through and it made it basically unreadable.
This is the kind of lights I used, so you can imagine how it looked seeing the bright individual led'* behind some letters..a mess:
I then moved the strips so that one was above the letters and one below. It looked really good since you could read the letters now, however it just wasn't bright enough, especially when I had the headlights on and shinning right at me.
I tried to think of how to fix this and when I was sitting in my car looking at my dash/gauges all lit up I thought..."hey, there are bulbs directly behind here and you can't see them individually because there is a transparent coating over the letters/numbers that evenly transmits the light"
So I figured all I needed was some transparent material to put over the back of the letters. I knew then what I needed to do. I went inside and got a wax paper baking sheet (things you put on your pans when baking things) and cut a piece to put over the letters. I put the cover back on and here are the results:
And the biggest thing was now it was bright enough so that you can see it with the headlights shinning in your face too.
It looks really cool in person and the wife thought it was cool. I think it was definitely a worthwhile modification. I need to drill out a couple of the holes in the "P" to let some more light in as you can see it looks almost like a D right now. Once I get new halos put in and I drill out the holes I will take more pictures, it should look better yet I think.
Let me know your thoughts
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Posts like a Northstar
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 699
Likes: 0
From: SW Florida
The P looks the way it does because I have to drill the hole out better. I might have to adjust the LED Strips behind the letters a bit so it is down lower and towards that corner. It was getting late and I needed to quit for the night, but I will most likely mess around with it some tonight again.
