Managed to carve out a little time to work on the LED conversion.
I tried at first taking apart one tail light with a heatgun at home and it was extremely difficult and I ended out cracking one of the lenses. not visibly but it was enough to figure out an easier way.
We have an environmental chamber, may as well use it. I set it to 75deg C and the lenses came out without issue.
I had planned on gluing the PCBs to the reflector but its angled which would cause the boards not to be concentric with the lenses. I printed a mounting plate to glue to the inside of the lens. The boards are held in place with push pins (which are typically used for this application). these brackets were given a quick shot of black paint so they dont stand out too much against the lens.
The board assemblies are nicely loomed and include a grommet to prevent the housings from filling with water, (typical problem with many of these cars). The wires are soldered and potted to the sockets so no modification to the car harness is needed.
I glued on some cable tie bases to neaten up the wiring. The extra length allows you to pull the cable out and attach them into the car harness. we also glued the solder joint to add some strength to the area.
I am still trying to clean up the lenses and housings. the butyl sealer is a pain in the dick to clean off and gets everywhere. I am going to put the lenses back into the environmental chamber to soften everything up and hopefully get them as clean as possible before I put them through the UV coating machine.
Progress is progress. Till next time
-Jordie