Scott's Jurassic Park Jeep Build!

[ScottWarrior]

Well I have insomnia problems and spend a lot of nights sitting in the dark on my ipad scanning through eBay. The amber KC lights were a lucky find. They had a weird title and almost no description. I really didn't want to bid on them because of that, but I knew what they were so I took a chance. I say that I got lucky, but I have made at least 20 or more phone calls or emails to people or businesses that are parting out, selling, or own Saharas. I really figured that I would find someone that was selling a Sahara or owned a Sahara that would sell me theirs since people other than us just throw them away without thinking about it. Surprisingly nobody was mad or acted offended by me asking if they would be willing to sell them to me.
I did have an interesting conversation with a gentleman who owned a Sahara. He was going to gut and strip it and make it into a crawler when I first started talking to him. I offered to buy pretty much everything he took off of it. By the time we finished talking he decided he would leave it stock and not mess it up. He said he didn't know they were so hard to find. Talked myself right out of some parts, but at least I saved a Sahara.

[hayabusa18]

I received the fog lights that came off of the Jeep Cherokee. They are not in as good of shape as I would have hoped. One has a broken front and rear bezel and both of them have rust on the inside of the lenses. The salvage yard also left the brackets for the fog lights on the Cherokee. I have already talked to them and they are going to be sending them to me today. Don't know how easy it is going to be to restore them, but here goes nothing. At least I have one good bezel.

My lights had the same problem they were rusted out but the plastic guards were in good shape except one of them had a crack in it but I repainted the guards and replaced the lights with some from autozone and now they look good as new!

[cptcrunch]

I received the fog lights that came off of the Jeep Cherokee. They are not in as good of shape as I would have hoped. One has a broken front and rear bezel and both of them have rust on the inside of the lenses. The salvage yard also left the brackets for the fog lights on the Cherokee. I have already talked to them and they are going to be sending them to me today. Don't know how easy it is going to be to restore them, but here goes nothing. At least I have one good bezel.

My lights had the same problem they were rusted out but the plastic guards were in good shape except one of them had a crack in it but I repainted the guards and replaced the lights with some from autozone and now they look good as new!

Would you mind taking some pictures and detailed measurements of the mounting bracket? I need the bracket and can have some fabbed for me, but I need the dimensions/measurements. Thanks!

[ScottWarrior]

Yeah hayabusa. I think I may have to do something like that. However I am going to take the lenses apart first and see if they could be re-chromed first. I also have a friend that is going to give me a set of fog lights off of a TJ. They are almost the exact same size and depth as these. I am hoping I can swap them out without any modification. Doubt I am that lucky, but who knows.

[hayabusa18]

I received the fog lights that came off of the Jeep Cherokee. They are not in as good of shape as I would have hoped. One has a broken front and rear bezel and both of them have rust on the inside of the lenses. The salvage yard also left the brackets for the fog lights on the Cherokee. I have already talked to them and they are going to be sending them to me today. Don't know how easy it is going to be to restore them, but here goes nothing. At least I have one good bezel.

My lights had the same problem they were rusted out but the plastic guards were in good shape except one of them had a crack in it but I repainted the guards and replaced the lights with some from autozone and now they look good as new!

Would you mind taking some pictures and detailed measurements of the mounting bracket? I need the bracket and can have some fabbed for me, but I need the dimensions/measurements. Thanks!

Heres some pics I hope these help if you need anymore just let me know.

[ScottWarrior]

I took the YJ Sahara fog lamps I had received apart today so that I could clean them and see what it would take to fix the lenses and reflectors. While messing with lights #1 and #2 I found on the Cherokee, I noticed that the lens on #1 was loose and was able to pull it apart from the reflector.

Fog lamps found on a Jeep Cherokee

Since I was able to do this I could get a better look at them. As you can see they are not in the best of shape and a good clean and polish alone are not going save them. However since I was able to separate them I think I can take them and have them chromed to make them usable.

[raptorwrangler]

It was great to meet you & your kiddo today!

[ScottWarrior]

Okay so I have not posted in a while due to a couple of deaths in the family and being extremely busy at work and with my business.
Below are pictures to show how I refurbished the fog lamps I found for my project. I am still planning on having the original lenses re chrome plated, but for now this worked extremely well.
I had picked up a pair of TJ fog lamps from a fellow Jeep club member. I originally did this to see if they could be used as a suitable replacement since the originals are so hard to find. Please see my post on TJ fog lamps if that interests you.
So I had these TJ fog lamps sitting there next to my YJ ones and I noticed that they are not much different in size. So I pulled the lights apart and to my dismay the TJ lens and reflector are quite a bit smaller. So they were not going to just swap out and into the YJ housing. Then I happened to notice that the TJ lamp almost fit inside of the lip of the YJ glass. I took one of the TJ lamps apart to do some more research. If you decide to do this there is a space at the bottom of the lamp that you can get a screw driver or other tool into to get it started. Be careful and take your time. After getting it apart I discovered that IT FIT! I couldn't believe it. So I pushed it into the glass and then stuck the lens into the housing. That is when I ran into a problem. Since the YJ glass fit inside the YJ reflector it took up more space. So as you can see from the pictures I ended up using a high temp rtv silicone to seal the lamp and placed a little extra where the housing would hold the lens in place. It worked extremely well. I had to position the lamp up against the front of the housing before putting it together, but that wasn't too hard. I did paint the fog lamp housings with a flat black bumper and trim paint I bought at Orielys before putting them together. Hope this helps someone else out. Oh by the way I found out that the YJ glass lenses are a much higher quality than the TJ ones, but the reflectors rust easily.

[ScottWarrior]

Here are a few more pictures from the refurbishing process. One of the TJ reflectors has a dark spot on the bottom you can see in the pictures, but still a considerable difference.

[ScottWarrior]

And here are the pictures of them finished and mounted on the Jeep. Such a big difference from the cheap rectangular ones. It looks like a completely different Jeep. The lenses worked so well it made me realize how crummy my head lights were. So I am getting a new set of Sylvania SilverStar headlights to make them look better.

Also if you noticed since the reflector went inside the lens you can see the red silicone around the outside of the lamp. At first I was worried about this, but then I think it will tie in once the Jeep is painted. Obviously if you are doing this and don't want the red then you can find some other high temp silicone that is a different color.