Making the pop-up lights was probably one of my most frustrating challenges of the rebuild. The old lights under the perspex covers were ineffective as they were too low down and the perspex covers diffused the light, plus I wanted the look of pop-up lights. This is a job I did, then redid at least 3 times until I got to where I was happy with them (eventually). Some of the photos were extracted from old VHS tape so the quality is not great.
This is the original recessed light bucket that I aimed to change into pop-up lights
The first cut is always the hardest when it comes to making changes. There was no turning back after I had cut the original headlight recess out of the body tube.
I used a plywood mould to form to the shape of the body. Then proceeded to lay fibreglass from underneath (getting more on me than the car!)
The first layers of fibreglass laid down. I reused the back edge of the original light recess to form the back edge of the new front indicators as it already had the lip to secure the glass to
Body filler added to smooth the rough finish on the fibreglass
I then tried to make a buck for two smaller round lights with a view to making a mold. This also didn't work out well.
My early attempt with large 7" round lights and rudimentary boxes were awful. The pop- up motors were Triumph TR7 units
Next I tried to make covers out of perspex, again another failure. I then tried to take a mold from them, with poor results.
Finally I modified the main pop-up box with fibreglass filler, then used high density foam to shape the front covers. I laid fibreglass over this and sanded it down
After lots of trial and error I was eventually happy with the end result
