Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

That's my hope. :lol:

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I did some work on my backup lights yesterday in hopes of increasing the light output. It has become very apparent how poor the backup lights on the WMB are since I been driving my new S10 Blazer to work on the weekends. It's a night and day difference between the two trucks.

After removing the lens it's easy to see why the light output is so poor. (Photo #1). I had lined the taillight and front turn signal housings with butyl aluminum sealing tape as part of getting the Burban road ready years ago but obviously forgot to do anything with the backup light housings.

Since most new cars have a reflector built in around the bulb I decided to do the same for the WMB. I picked up a pair of used 6v lantern battery flashlights for $2 at the Rebuilding Center (I love that place!). I stripped the reflectors out of them and dove in.

Carefully holding the gasket I traced the inside edge of the gasket on to the reflector. Then I did a rough cut of the tracing followed by a test fitting. I repeated that process half a dozen more times before I got a nice close fit. Then I used a Dremel to open up the hole for the bulb and snapped the reflector in place. Between the bulb and the close fit there was no need to glue the reflector in place. I should have got a picture of the reflector installed without the light on. I will get that photo when I do the other side. I only did one side as I wasn't sure how well it would work. But now it's done it I'll be doing the other side for sure as the light output is much better than I expected it to be.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

And here are the results! Even in broad daylight the difference is noticeable.
But in the dark wow! Notice how much light is reflected on to the pavement on the driver's side. Looking out the rear window I noticed more light from the driver's side when when I left for work this morning.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Nice.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

That turned out great.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Not sure how you came up with that, it sure came out great.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

that reverse light idea was genius...nice idea

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

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Looks good.

Thinking outside of the box and good ol' American ingenuity is how he came up with that..... :)
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Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

I’m amazed at how well you keep refining the WMB…little things like this are usually overlooked! Thanks for documenting this upgrade for others to copy!

Woody

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Thank you everybody for all the kind words but I'm not really all that smart. After seeing many broken taillights (Photo) at the wrecking yard it dawned on me that I could do that to the WMB. From there it was a bunch of walking through the wrecking yards looking for a donor set of lights (Which I never found) when the flashlight idea came to mind. Doing it for $2 was the only genius part of the job. :lol:

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

That's a great mod. I have an old flashlight reflector on the drivers side courtesy lamp in my '71 Jimmy. With a totally-removable top, there's no dome light.
On the '71 GMC and '68 C/10 Stepside, I did a lower tech, but quite effective, move of cleaning the lenses and buckets and spraying the insides with aluminum spraypaint. Same for taillight buckets. Works with tungsten incandescent bulbs. LEDs have no ''backsplash'.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Great idea and a nice job!

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

More information from the second light. This one took two tries. I used the first one as a template and traced it on the reflector. This however didn't work out as planned, due to the second reflector having a steeper angle to the cone and when I cut it on the lines it was too small in the housing. This caused the cost of this modification to go up by 50%. :lol:

The second thing I learned is it is much easier to enlarge the hole for the bulb with a step drill bit over using a Dremel like I did on the first one.

For the rough shape I used a band saw to do the initial cuts. I also learned that spraying the blade with WD40 will help prevent the plastic from sticking to the blade.

The final shaping was done with a sanding drum in a drill and a hand sanding block. I found that sanding was cleaner when I went from the inside to the outside or from the bulb side to the battery side.

I discovered the hard way is it is easy to push the reflector into the housing but, hard to get it out as the housing gets smaller towards the back. The reflector will bend as you push it in but it wants to dig in and grab when you try to remove it. I needed to leave a bit of a gap on one corner to allow a pick tool to pass behind the reflector so I could remove it as I sanded it to size.

Another thing is try not to touch the inside of the reflector as the surface scratches easily.

And thanks again for all the kind words and encouragement I do appreciate them.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

The 1971-72 style B/U lenses are clearer, and fluted differently to give off more light. However, I've always preferred the 1967-70 bullseye B/U lenses aesthetically since they match pattern of the tail lenses.

Re: Working Man's Burbon
 

Cool, I learned something today. Thanks!