Mazda 323F GT 
Custom LED Tails
A small
30 steps guide on how to screw up normal tail lights of the BG and make a
weird “something”.
First of
all an ordinary tails from BG been used as a base for all modifications. The
strong reasons for that were:
- we don’t
want to cut a body of a car;
- complexity
of the standard mounts of the tails.
Basic lights
I’ve got for 25$ pair. Then spent few month searching through the parts shops
looking for something which could be used as a reflectors. The major criteria
was price so variants like Hella clusters were not a choice. I’ve stopped
at two choices – a clear white side reflector from old Russian-made trailer;
- a complete rear tails from extremely old Russian-made :) light car ZAZ-968.
I really liked the ZAZ ones – they are quite big, round, nice shape and easily
could looks like a Ferrari ones. But… they are bigger than a mountings so
I’d have to cut a car body. So used a trailer ones – 8 cost me 30$ including
internal things like mounts, plugs and lamp (could get them cheaper without
internal stuff because anyway didn’t use it).
Then another
thing I had to search for was a pipe with appropriate diameter which I can
place reflectors into. Reflectors are 8.5cm in diameter so need a pipe more
than 9cm (approx 3.54 inches) and less that 10cm (10 is a maximum diameter
you can use on a standard lights without need to cut the mounts which is not
very good). Occasionally found a good pipe diam. 10cm on a IKEA type shop.
Pipe was for kitchen air ventilation system :). Also bought a variable diameter
cutter for plastic at the same shop.
Step 1.
Cut the circles in your base tails.
Used a cutter and a drill for it. Need to be very careful and work on a slow revs for not to damage the plastic because it’s easily start melting.
Step
3. I planned to mount the clear reflectors deep inside the tails so surrounding
pipe should go deep inside the tails body. To do so I had to clear a lot of
space inside the base. Used a small poker (bought it long time ago when was
a kid).
