Hot rod Taillights

[hotrod1]

Originally Posted by mr48chev

I like the concept of the idea on the taillight shown in the video. Take something that isn't that expensive and is readily available, add a simple piece to it to make it a bit slicker and put it on the truck in a way that it looks like it belongs there.

As most on here have figured out, I'm not into making changes just for the sake of making changes. Each change has to have purpose and fit into the whole theme of the vehicle.

I'm not a big fan of putting that lens on the tail light that Rude Dude showed but at the same time it does serve a dual purpose. it lets the light show from the side of the truck without having a side marker light tacked on the truck. Quite often when we customize a truck the cool factor outweighs the safety factor and the bonehead drivers around us might not see our tail, stop or turn signals as well as we need them to but that setup should be very visible. According to some of the local police officers the tail lights on my 48 are/were not visible from the rear when they were following me and I attribute part of that to the way I made my tail lights and where I put them.

How did u make your lights and where did u place them that seems to be an issue?

[mr48chev]

Originally Posted by hotrod1

How did u make your lights and where did u place them that seems to be an issue?

I got the wise idea of putting some flat lenses behind the panel below the tailgate. I cut the lenses out of some mid 70's tail light out of a car I scrapped out and made some boxes to go behind them and hold the bulbs.

After getting stopped because the lights were said to be too dim I pulled the lenses I made out and put some trailer lenses over the holes along with adding a second bulb and painting the inside of the housing white. The photo was due to someone on some board asking about rear bumpers and I posted a photo of the stainless steel pipe bumper. The reflectors on the bed stanchions were due again to being pulled over.

This photo is after the truck was used as my daily driver work truck for several years and yes the bed and tailgate were sagging.


I got burned out on car shows about ten years ago and just let the truck sit after the 250 got so worn out that it burned more oil than gas. One of the main things that burned me out was the constant "what's it worth?" that seems to be the only thing that spectators of any age are interested in any more. That's another story in it's self though.