I'm nearly done with making my own.



Notes:
- Yes this is unfinished, the color is primer and will be painted flint mica once I get the rest of the body mods.
- Its fiberglass.
- It took way too long and I wouldnt likely do it again.
- camera phone pic and WI is filthy in February.
- Lights will be old skool Catz XLO's since its what I had laying around.
- Yes thats duct tape, since this was only a fitment test and will not actually be mounted until properly painted.

 

nice job, looks good. How did you go about making it bigger to smaller with the fiberglass? Did you mount the foglight and then glass around it?

 

wowww.... looks niceeee

 

looks really good. please share how u went about making it

 

looks great...is there anyway for a company, or for you, you have a mold made of that?

 

They're made like this:
- front plate is 1/8" MDF that was cut to fit the bumper opening.
- notch the backside vertically to allow it to curve to the bumper
- clamp the plate in the center while raising the edges about 3/8", forming the curve
- glass the back, so the curve stays when the clamp is released.
- cut the opening that the fabric will wrap through and down to the little light mounting plate, which is also 1/8" MDF.

- The front and back plates were joined into a skeleton of sorts using metal straps, which allowed the back plate to be bent until the headlight aim was close. Final adjustment will be made with a plate against that plate and a series of 3 screws to cover all axis of adjustment.
- then hot glue fabric to outer frame, leaving enough slack to stretch it down and through the hole in the fog mounting plate.

Here's pics to demonstrate:


Soak that in resin and then you'll have this:


- Brace up the back with a couple layers of mat and resin, cut away the metal straps.
- sand. bondo. sand. bondo. sand. bondo.sand. bondo.sand. bondo.sand. bondo.sand. bondo.sand. bondo.sand. bondo.sand. bondo.....

 

One problem with that, the opening on the mounting plate in back is only gonna work with fog lights that have the same measurements as the Catz XLOs and Catz is outta business.

If a company wanted to buy a mold of the front off me they'd have to modify the mounting plate opening to fit another brand of light. Then theres the fab of the mounting of the lights... the mounting to the bumper in a consumer friendly fashion.. etc.. etc.

Also the factory lip would need about 3/8" trimmed from the part that wraps into these openings since the bezels are so far forward. But if the bezels were farther back light output down the middle of the road would suffer, it was a toss up. I opted modify my ABS dynamics lip to match the bezels rather than vice versa.

These will probably remain one-off items.

 

VERY ambitious! and looks great, if i have the time, ill venture to do those as well..

doesnt look like this was your first fiberglass project - and if it was, very good job!

 

nice idea really looks good!

 

that is slick good idea!

 

that is some great DIY work. hopefully someone else takes the time soon to make those for the rest of us.

 

Most excellent!!!!!

You could coat it with mold release and make a mold easily enough, just the front should be fine, at least for starters.

In fact, though I may not make these myself, I would pay a reasonable fee to have you make a mold for me, then I can look around to find somebody interested in making them.

I have contemplated something similar for our project car but with the opening around the light bigger than the light so I can hook up a hose and have a brake cooling duct as well as a foglight mount

BUT, I never have that kind of time, more ideas than the time to creat them.

Let me know, PM, email, etc, rick@raamaudio.com

Rick

 

Thanks for all the kind words, I can't wait to get them done and the rest of the exterior complete.

Raamaudio, your vision of the fog/brake cooling is pretty cool. only concern would be the space available at the narrowest point of the "duct" in the bumper. It could be remedied by cutting the back out of the bumper, but in this case i'd like to have the option to return it to stock if I ever desire.

In the next couple months I'll toss up pics of the final front end mods.

 

Very nice work. One question: How are you holding the pieces in place?

 

With the slight "funnel" shape it will force a certain amount of air into the opening aroung the lamp even if only 1/4" or so but a bit more would be good. It would require some rather small fogs but the ones you used seem to be a good size to work around. Just need the duct to flow back with less angle to the sides I suppose

Rick

 

I'm glassing three metal straps to the back of the bezels. One to mount the light to the bezel, and the other two will pass though the bumper (once the black waffle plastic is popped out) and screw to the backside of the bumper's "duct".
Should work ok.

 

holy hell that looks like! excellent work

 

great job man.

 

any new updates?

 

Just a test fitment with the ABS lip. It looks like they might actually fit behind the lip with no additional mods.
Other than that, I've just been glassing the mounting straps to the back of them. Things have been picking up in the shop so I havent had much time. It will probably be a month or two before they're painted, saving up for the Viniati spoiler so I can get everything painted at once...