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Custom made my own clear turn signal lenses for $5

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Old 09-15-04 | 10:27 PM
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Custom made my own clear turn signal lenses for $5

Since corksport stopped making the S4 clear bumper turn signals (I emailed them, they only have replacement S5 ones now) I had to take matters into my own hand, and I've seen this done before on a friend of mine's S4 also. Anyways, I went to home depot and bought a small sheet of clear lexan plastic/plexiglass stuff and the scorer knife for like 5 bucks total and went to work. I outlined the orange plastic lenses from my S4 onto the plexiglass and started cutting, the short side edge, very slowly, with a simple hack saw. After that side was cut (I started at the top of the sheet so I only had two sides to cut, a long one and short one), I used the knife and scored the long side for a good 10 mins. After it was about halfway through, I held one side down hard on the table and hit the other side outwards that was overlapping, resulting in the long edge snapping off. After that I drilled the two holes and was pretty much done. Sanded a bit to make it look straight, and then installed 'em. For now they don't look AMAZING!!! like the 65 dollar ones you'd have to pay for them to be just like the originals, but they get the job done (I really don't like orange lenses on cars). I think I'm going to spray paint the grey plastic that surrounds the bulbs housing a flat black to match my S4's bumper strip. Anyways, let me know what you think:





YES I know I need to buy orange bulbs (well maybe), and I'll post better, day pics tomorrow. But they really do look nice, once I do the "joey headlight mod" (look it up on google) to it, it will look even better. FYI when looking at it from far away, even 2 feet away, it looks like there is no lens covering the bulb at all. A lot of people will probably come up to the car and tap on the lens to see if there's even a cover there, but it's there, its just very clear and crisp.
Old 09-15-04 | 10:41 PM
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Not bad. Thats one of the reasons I got an S5, though .
Old 09-15-04 | 10:57 PM
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you pretty much just said what I was thinking. "it looks like there is no lens"
Old 09-15-04 | 11:00 PM
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looks good i like it cant wait to see the pics in the day time im sure its great looking
Old 09-15-04 | 11:15 PM
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Yeah, night pics don't really work good, it just happened to be 10pm when I finished them, hehe. I'll post some better ones tomorrow!
Old 09-15-04 | 11:23 PM
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yeah, good job with the lights, i was hoping for better pictures, but u said it, so i'll be waiting ^_^
well how do u think it matches the headlights, FTP and fog lights?
Old 09-15-04 | 11:49 PM
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Well with all my lights on I have like 6 lights up front which looks kind of silly, so I may take off my fog lights, dunno yet. And I have no FTP lenses, took em off cause one was cracked when I bought the car and both were faded and yellowish. I'd buy new ones but 75 bucks a piece, i'll pass for now. But it does look much nicer and matches great. I'll be cleaning out inside the housings and stuff tomorrow to make them look real clean and painting the grey part near the screw holes black, maybe next week.
Old 09-15-04 | 11:58 PM
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uh you know u can find any of those lenses on this forum for like 20 bucks a pair at the most right? i jsut installed the s5 tails and front bumper turn signals today.
Old 09-16-04 | 12:36 AM
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to add to this,. if you go to home depot. they sell this plastic sheet .. its called acrylic lens sheets. they are flat on one side and contoured on the other. they are whiteish lens sheets for flouresant lights in the celings. well i actually took a sheet of that . and if you have ever seen the new cougars . i took out the reflector . cut out a peice of the acyrilic lens heated it up and molded it to fit the stock lens . then simply replaced the stock lens with my fabricated peice. no it looks like i have euro clear turn signals. i was gonna to this to my seven , but ihavent gotten around to it .. but the sheet cost like 4 bucks and if you have a dremel and a bench grinder you can make these things all day long. maybe if there is enough people interested i might make up a batch . ill have to try . i mgiht even be able to make the ones for the rears and the turn signals in the front .. hmmm buisness venture?? hehehe

edit here is a pic of what i did .. these arent mine ,, the guy used my how to to make them .. but basically this is what the sheet of the laycrilic looks like
http://www.fastcougar.com/forums/att.../ACF5B34%2EJPG

Last edited by alwayssideways; 09-16-04 at 12:40 AM.
Old 09-16-04 | 01:22 AM
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is it http://www.lowes.com/lkn?action=prod...47-1638-129847
or
http://www.lowes.com/lkn?action=prod...-1638-1405083A
???


found some more
http://www.lowes.com/lkn?action=prod...8-CC25/1405005
http://www.lowes.com/lkn?action=prod...8-PTC25/1A0000

Last edited by scheistermeister; 09-16-04 at 01:27 AM.
Old 09-16-04 | 01:25 AM
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haha my car came with those
Old 09-16-04 | 01:34 AM
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Very nice. But just like everyone else I'm happy mine came with it I have like 3 S4 turn signals, I use them as DVD Ends (like book ends....only for DVDs) and my foglight too for my games, it looks pretty hot


BTW, your car looks familiar, have I seen it somewhere before??
Old 09-16-04 | 02:11 AM
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Looks good, I may have to do that one day when I'm bored.
Old 09-16-04 | 08:35 AM
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BTW, your car looks familiar, have I seen it somewhere before??
You could say that =p

I left my camera on all night, I'll post pics later today when its done charging. Gives me time to clean em up and buy some bulbs.
Old 09-16-04 | 08:38 AM
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uh you know u can find any of those lenses on this forum for like 20 bucks a pair at the most right? i jsut installed the s5 tails and front bumper turn signals today.
What? Clear S5 lenses up front? They don't fit on S4 models, and if someone was selling their old, discontinued S4 clear lenses from Corksport, they'd probably charge you 20 bucks for shipping alone...
Old 09-16-04 | 09:49 AM
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Originally Posted by 7th Heaven
...when looking at it from far away, even 2 feet away, it looks like there is no lens covering the bulb at all.
And that's why it looks so bad. It just looks broken (like your FTP's). You should've used the prismatic diffuser sheet used for flouro lighting.
Old 09-16-04 | 09:59 AM
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mine looks better the black housing and all. btw u need a amber bulb to drive it legally
Old 09-16-04 | 12:13 PM
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Looks good, I'm not a fan of the amber lights either.
Old 09-16-04 | 08:30 PM
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Ok so I went to walmart and bought some "Odds N Ends" flat black spray paint and some amber bulbs and went to work. I took off the backing curved mirror, and scrubbed the **** out of the inside of the housing with soap and water (while protecting the bulb socket of course). After they were all clean I dried em up and began the painting process... here's how it looks now. I must say it looks pretty damn sick. I'm a big fan of black housing headlamps, epecially on mustangs, so I wasn't surprised that they would turn out this nice. I'll take better pics tomorrow as it was dusk when I put everything back together, and they look 100x better in person, and during the day:

Day pics, before painting, and with white bulbs in:


Painting process:


Little flashback for those who haven't seen FD wheels on an FC in awhile =)


What? They stick out? Shhhh...


And the end pics, amber bulbs:





They look greeeeeeat, especially when they're on. I was going to leave the mirror out but it wouldn't make much of a turn signal. Tell me what you think, looks good or looks half assed? Sorry for the shitty end pics, I'll post better ones tomorrow morning!
Old 09-16-04 | 09:52 PM
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Still looks broken...
Old 09-17-04 | 01:00 AM
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haha I think it looks cool
Old 09-17-04 | 06:03 AM
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Originally Posted by 7th Heaven
Tell me what you think, looks good or looks half assed?
The latter...
Old 09-17-04 | 10:28 AM
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Originally Posted by NZConvertible
The latter...
I agree
Old 09-17-04 | 10:31 AM
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Paint em' black..it will make it look much better.
Old 09-17-04 | 10:38 AM
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Put the stock lenses back on, if you don't like amber, go to a hobby store and by the smoke tint, they have it for RC cars I believe. As I said before, it's like a translucent spray paint.



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