Right Rear Door Courtesy Lamp

Hello, it's been a while, so this is more or less where I left off.

The cheap plastic courtesy lamps were showing their age, the plastic was cracked on a couple doors, the metalized coating was scraped off on this one and the lenses weren't that great either.

Starting here, this is the original mounting plate the OEM door lamp uses. It's installed with the characteristic indifference to auto assembly of the time. It's crooked. Such a poor execution, even though you can't see this when the door panel is on. It bothers me just knowing it plus the lens on the door panel is also crooked.

No one seems to reproduce the door courtesy lamps for the '65-'66 Ford full size, but these are Mustang reproductions and they are close enough. In fact they are nicer than the OEM ones on the LTD. 4 of these were purchased. They are about 30 dollars a piece, but in this case you get what you pay for. Very happy with the build quality, compared the originals.

Here's the Scott Drake Mustang reproductions up close.

These have a die cast front and rear. The front is triple chrome plated.

Here's a comparison of the LTD's original door lamp assembly on the right and the Mustang one on the left.

The Mustang ones are a wee bit smaller.

But the outward appearance between the two are light years apart.

The Mustang ones look nicer lit up. The red lens on the LTD looks like the Red Alert red light on the original Star Trek Enterprise.

These do take different bulbs, both are bayonet but the Mustang uses the dual pin and the LTD a single pin. For a fair light test I stuffed the same single pin bulb in both.

Of course the Mustang lamps will not fit into the hole outline in the LTD mounting bracket.

I didn't like enlarging the existing plate to house the Mustang lamps so I made some stock blank brackets from scratch.

I drew up in CAD the outline to properly make the holes in the new blanks I made.

But first I plug welded the skewed holes from the poor factory installation, then drilled holes in the right location.

Much better.

To ensure the lens will be level and centre'd with the door card I taped the template to the blank.

Using awls to locate the door card on the door shell, I held up the lens and kept moving around the template until the two mounting holes were in line with the lens. Then I removed everything and cut it out. Looks good.

For now I'll just use the bulbs that came with the Mustang Courtesy lamps. They are incandescent. If I can find a good white colour temperature LED, I'll use those. But that's kind of further down the list sort of thing.

Hah, the awls didn't get me, it was all the sharp edges working in the door.

Cheers