I started out in to the garage this morning somewhat earlier than usual today. Having great confidence in how much easier it was going to be replicating all the stuff I learned on the passenger side, I cut all the external holes at the same time:
I then sliced all the upper curves with a sabre saw:
This not only went much faster than the Dremel cut off wheels, it kept the heat down much lower preventing blistering of the edge paint. The bottom curve of the rear two holes still required the Dremel wheels, as there was insufficient space for the sabre saw blades.
In anticipation of today’s workload, I got online yesterday and searched for some type of sanding drum more effective than the little Dremel drums I’ve been burning through. I found the following on Lowe’s website. We ran out last night just before closing and picked up a couple:
What a difference. After cutting all four holes open, the grinding needed for final fitting took less than an hour. Using the Dremel drums to accomplish the same task took most of a day.
The next several hours were spent connecting the light wires and sequencers. It was straight forward and easy, but tedious and time consuming. Both parking light and blinker systems were double checked and operating perfectly. The last effort was running the new harness through the hood support and feeding it next to the existing hood harness.
Here’s the only finished photo taken tonight:
There’s less than an hour of work left to attach the connectors and run the new hood ground, but my right ankle and knee starting screaming an hour earlier and finally gave up and stopped working. I’m really looking forward to having this done tomorrow as there is no more “dirty” work. I’ve had enough cutting and grinding to last for a while.
It’s late enough in the season that as soon as the wiring is finished, I’m going to wash the truck, detail the mags, pull the snow tires and reinstall the street rod tires/wheels. Then it will be ready for some finished photos and a video showing how cool the lights look in operation.