One Car Garage, part 2

One happy Bucky

One happy Bucky

Dear Sharka,

How’s summer camp? I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that they stripped off your parts and paint. You were a sad little thing that I didn’t even recognize. Isn’t that strange? It was such a vivid dream. Almost like I was there.

Anyways, I’m writing to let you know that you don’t need to hurry back. It’s a little lonely by myself, but I’m managing. And don’t worry about Driver. He’s not going crazy anymore. Nope. He’s been… wonderful.

Ignore the garage floor. It’s just photoshopped.

Ignore my red tail lights. Driver didn’t spend all evening working on me.

Hope camp is good and you have good… um. weather?

your brother,
Bucky

PS. I have new gauges too.
——————————————————

Yeah. Bucky is loving life right now.

And the cars call me “Driver.” Who knew?

Tail light film.

Tail light film.

A couple weeks ago, Geoff sent me a few squares of red translucent film. It seemed like the perfect time to apply them, so me and my X-acto knife hit the garage and started work.

The film is to get more of an all-red tail light effect. It goes over the clear turn signal portion. Sticking it on is easier than painting the lights and if you don’t like it, you just tear it off.

Thanks again Geoff!!!

Before.

Before.

Ignore the garage floor. Seriously. There will be a blog post about it in a week or so. It’s not finished. I have to let it lay flat a couple more days before trimming the overlap sections and taping it down.

Just pretend the floor is not interesting at all.

This part is about the tail lights.

Half done!

Half done!

Film stuck on and smoothed out.

Film stuck on and smoothed out.

Done.

Done.

The film is very easy to install. Nothing like striping a car. There’s not much to it.

1: Spray the film and CLEAN tail light with slightly soapy water.
2: Stick the film in place and smooth down.
3: Trim to fit. DONE.

I only had a problem with step 3. Getting the vinyl cut right. See, there’s a little ring around each section of light where the different plastics meet up. You can feel it with your fingernail. Geoff reported that the X-acto blade just magically knows where to go. It follows that ring.

But… I sanded my tail lights flush a few years ago to get rid of some haze. They’re super smooth. So… no little ring to follow.

In the end, I just had to trace visually and cut carefully. It was pretty simple once I figured it out. Still, I ruined one square of the vinyl before figuring this out. Glad I had extra.

Then it was time for another small mod.

Marker lights.

Marker lights.

This is a mini project that I’ve been putting off for FAR too long. For… six years?

When Sharka got crushed on the freeway, I saved all the good parts. I have piles of NA Miata parts. I could almost build a new NA.

I saved the wiring harness and rear corner marker lights from the dead NA specifically for this project. Bucky needed them.

These lights have never lit up on the NB. The bean counters killed the lights back here. Only the NA had lights in the reflectors. They’re the same size housing, just no lights in the NB.

Out came the screwdriver.

Shaved lenses.

Shaved lenses.

I couldn’t just install the things. I had to shave them flat and get rid of those raised characters. It’s worth the 15 minutes of work.

220 grit
800 grit
2000 grit
Meguiar’s plastic polish.
DONE!

Figuring out the wiring.

Figuring out the wiring.

Success!

Success!

I’ve never changed a tail lamp bulb in an NB. You have to peel back the trunk carpet, remove the whole tail lamp (they don’t really come out easy) and then let it dangle to get access to the bulb. WTF? Seriously? It’s almost painfully difficult.

Anyways, once I had the light free, I began scrutinizing the wires. A little inspection with the multimeter and I discovered the white and black wires were the ones I wanted. The green is for the brake light.

I only blew one fuse figuring this out. That’s not bad! I even had a spare.

Note to self: buy more mini fuses.

Wires routed under the bumper.

Wires routed under the bumper.

Success!

Success!

Once I had the wires connected at the light housing, it was simple to get Sharka’s old marker lamps installed and the wiring run.

The NA wiring just sorta dangled up high behind the bumper. It was held in two places as I recall. I tucked the wiring under Bucky’s bumper as tightly as I could. Since I couldn’t easily get it up as high as the NA mounting, I wanted it tight. No dangling wires for this car.

Goodnight Bucky.

Goodnight Bucky.

Lighting it up for the first time… man. It felt like an accomplishment. It was only an hour of work altogether for the tint and marker lights but… dang. Subtle mods. I love subtle mods. And one was something I’d been meaning to do for years.

It felt RIGHT.

I think Bucky is getting used to all this attention. Sharka had better hurry back. I’ll have an NC daily and Bucky’s engine on the stand before you know it.

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  • Nick says:

    Told ya NBs needed love too. 🙂

  • speedypenguin says:

    Love the attention to detail, Adam! Looks like I’ll be shaving my sidemarkers in the near future now…hooray for Bucky!

  • Stoly says:

    Amazing how such a small thing like tinting the tail lamps makes such a huge difference. Looks great!

  • Todd says:

    Next mod: wire them to flash with the blinkers. There’s a write up in the m.net garage section.

    • revlimiter says:

      Sharka’s front markers are wired up that way. The signals blink, the fender winkers blink, and the corners blink. It’s a lot of blinking.

      I’ve never done the rears. Probably should.

  • Brad says:

    Thanks for sharing the red film idea. I’ve seen similar applications before, but never really clicked when staring at my Supra’s tail lights. The center section is darker than the tail lights themselves, and has been on every one I’ve seen.

    This red film idea… could possibly fix that. Thanks again!

  • Marloon says:

    Thanks for this write up. How did you ground the NA harness cable? I’m going to do this modification to my car!

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