Red October Build

[marshal]

a little more utilitarian:

got to work today on my "behind the grille" lights that i want to make. i started out with my old set of fog lights from my Jeep:

i did this bit of my mod 2 years ago for my wrangler, converting the fogs to driving lights

this shield cap forced none of the light to hit the top or bottom of the reflector, along with shrouding 50% of the H3 bulb. soooo it had to go

tada!

somewhere in here i converted the lights from using a 35watt H3 bulb to a 75watt-er and 4100K in color. also, through a year of use (before i upgraded to SolTek lights) i dunked them and the reflector got spotted with mud and some had caked up on the bottom

sooo disassembly!

these are the lenses after theyve been cleaned up. they're really nice high quality made in Germany Hella stuff. glass lens and a steel refelctor so they're good for up to 100watts. my plan is to put a very very light tint on the lens so that they're not so visible behind my grille

i wet sanded the glass on the lenses with 2000 grit, i was in no way attempting to rough the surface, but to mainly remove debris and things that some how managed to either fuse or attach themselves with the glass. once that was done i cleaned them with simple green to make sure that they were degreased so i wouldnt have another cracking incident and then cleaned them with rubbing alcohol. i applied the night shades and so far so good. this is a bit darker than what i was originally thinking, but it darkens up as it dries so we'll see what it turns into and i can go from there with sanding it down to what i want.

also, today was a nice day - so i had to take atleast 1 picture

here is my "plans" for the bracket i need to build for behind the grille. i want to include 4 lights. i have a second set of Jeep "fog" lights that are going to be donated to me by a friend. on these im going to keep the internals the same for a "fog" orientation and install 2800K-3000K yellow bulbs in them for poor visibility conditions. still waiting on those though.

 

[KaiserM715]

Here is another (granted, more expensive) option:
http://www.svtoffroad.com/showthread.php?3408-A-good-start-for-our-friend-Jeff....

 

[marshal]

yeah, ive seen that. i like the concept but ive got a total of 20 dollars invested into this so far with a budget of around $120 bucks. that light alone is over $1000 and not counting the bracket

 

[marshal]

sorry for the lack of updates, but my daughter was born last tuesday and im just starting to get back to stuff

i had a couple free minutes last night to apply 6 very heavy coats of clear coat to the lenses and let them dry overnight. this morning i brought them into the house to see the results:

so far so good, im really happy with the darkness. not too dark that its solid black and keeping light from getting out, but dark enough that in the shade of the hood they wont be seen till they're turned on or someone is specifically looking for them.

there were a few defects in the surface so i got out my polishing compound and went to work:

finished:

then i sat down and got the lights all back together.

im really happy so far with the results, and im hoping that tomorrow with all the baby stuff settling down that i'll be able to spend some time fabricating my bracket for the lights. im pretty confident that i'll be able to get the parts i need bent, bent and everything ground and finished off and ready to be welded up. we'll see how long it takes me to find time to weld it. once thats complete all i need to do is paint it and build a wiring harness for the lights and decide where i want to place the switches.

does anyone know where i can get the same style switches that ARB supplies with their kit? hopefully a place that i can have symbols or words screen printed onto them as well.

 

[BCHauler]

Congratulations on the little one!

 

[marshal]

started to work on the bracket today. i first started out with my 3/16s angle iron and marked it for cutting

once i cut it to 32" i rounded the edges. really not neccisary at all but i wanted to give it a finished look along with ridding it of edges for any possible work in the engine bay. i know how a rough corner can piss a person off

then i took it one step further and did the entire thing

done

next i went to work on making the bracket hangers. this was by far the most labor intensive part of the job. i basically used regular fire forging techniques that i was familiar with to bend the 3/16th flat stock to the angles i wanted them to. i screwed up the first one and thankfully had enough left over to end up with 2 perfect copies

finished product ready to be welded up. hopefully sometime this week.

 

[KaiserM715]

sorry for the lack of updates, but my daughter was born last tuesday and im just starting to get back to stuff

Congrats!!

finished:

The polished NightShades came out really nice.

does anyone know where i can get the same style switches that ARB supplies with their kit? hopefully a place that i can have symbols or words screen printed onto them as well.

Painless has several different styles of switches:
http://www.painlessperformance.com/...ed.php?SearchAll=Trucks&refinesearch=Switches
Not sure if they will do custom printing or not...

 

[TheGuyJones]

All that hard work to make the look so good and they're gonna go behind the grill. Sort of a shame, but at the same time I definitely get the look you are going for. I've ran the idea in my mind about putting some lights behind the grill of my expo.

 

[marshal]

thanks guys.

i'll look into painless, but i think i found switches i like through daystar.

more work:

finished product. hoping tomorrow to get all the holes drilled out and it painted and mount the lights. then once thats done the only thing i need to do is wire the setup and we're golden

 

[xj joey]

Looks like you need a mig welder. Hahaha. Looking forward to your build. Do miss the Rubi. http://www.otrattw.com/

 

[marshal]

thanks for the link! this is exactly what i wanted

and yes, i need a mig - desperately. but my friend Gavin can make his 85 year old Airco stick welder make some pretty, pretty beads

 

[marshal]

painted, needs a few more coats and it should be going on soon

 

[marshal]

progress is moving! i have the lights mounted (but not wired yet) i also have a set of Hella 700FF lights coming sometime this week that i will be night shading and converting to H3 55watt HID using the kit i had for my foglights originally (with H3 bulbs) these will be in addition to my current lights and will be mounted on the outside part of my light bar.

im also going to convert the new lights in the center to 2800K color (incase someone missed that)

im really happy with how it looks!

 

[marshal]

switch panel and switches came in, along with the H3 bulbs for the HID conversion on the Hella's that will arrive on monday

 

[marshal]

hellas are here!

disassembly:

prepped for night shades:

tinting is finished. just waiting for them to cure up all the way and then clear will go on and be polished.

one REALLY nice thing about putting nightshades over glass lenses like both of these sets of Hella's is that if i ever change my mind and i want them clear again, a sharp razor blade strips it down to glass in less than a minute! :thumbsup: