GT Rear Side Marker Light improvement

[thescifiguy]

On my old 70 GT I modified the rear side marker lights with much better looking, working, and fitting lenses from a Toyota Tercel(I think it was a hatchback). Original GT side marker lights fit like crap, even when new and with a fresh rubber seal, plus you can barely see the light.

The lenses from the Tercel fit the GT openings perfectly, with just a slight overlap at the bottom that I fixed by trimming the rubber seal that came with the light. They had a trailing "bubble" sort of shape which allowed the light to be seen even from the front or rear of the car and the bulb was much more prominently placed. They fit and worked so much better than the original lights!

I'm just providing this info for anyone who might be able to sift through pics of Tercels from the 80's and identify them for us(me). I remember that they only showed up on one model year and I'm pretty sure they were only on a hatchback. I'd love to get another set of those and once you see them you'll ALL want them, too!

[traytodd]

Can you post a picture?

[broszzy]

Could this be the marker light?

[thescifiguy]

I'd need a close up to tell for sure. My fuzzy blowup of your pic doesn't look quite right. The Opel GT lens is parallelogram-shaped, the lens I found is close to that, but the bottom edge bends downward slightly(hence the need to trim the rubber gasket slightly to get it to work).

I'm not kidding when I tell ya that the lens we're trying to track down is great. It fits and functions so much better than the original you'd swear it was made for the car and that the original wasn't.

[First opel 1981]

Is this the light?

[thescifiguy]

That sure looks a lot like it, although I don't recall the orange reflector part or the chrome outer edge(that actually might be a nice accent to go with our GT's chrome stuff).

Could you please give me all the details of the model year and type of car and also any numbers printed on the light itself? You wouldn't happen to have one of those lights you could send me, do you?

[Dennis Texas]

Originally Posted by First opel 1981 Is this the light?

The orange looks like reflection from a flash or light possibly. Do you have a picture of that lense assembly maybe from top down view I would be interested also, do you have a dealer model or part number?

[First opel 1981]

Originally Posted by thescifiguy That sure looks a lot like it, although I don't recall the orange reflector part or the chrome outer edge(that actually might be a nice accent to go with our GT's chrome stuff). Could you please give me all the details of the model year and type of car and also any numbers printed on the light itself? You wouldn't happen to have one of those lights you could send me, do you?

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply I had these. I pulled this picture off of Ebay. There are several there.

Search for 82-86 Toyota Supra marker and you will find several on Ebay.

[thescifiguy]

I bought the ones on ebay($13 each) and they were the exact ones I've been looking for. I've uploaded an album of pictures of them mounted on my GT. If you want'em, they're from '82-'85 Toyota Supra's.
The bulb is enclosed WITHIN the lens itself, rather than the idiotic oem's way with the bulb unenclosed and mounted entirely outboard of the lens, thereby using 75% of it's light to light up the inside of the car.
I attached male spade connectors to the wire terminals so that I could just plug them into the existing wiring(In case you want to put the old ones back in with no fuss).
The lens has two bolts about 1/2" long sticking out. I used the original big u-shaped brackets to hold them in by slightly enlarging the bolt hole and inverting them to form two crossing bars across the inside of the opening. You could use any number of ways to bend or cut down the original brackets or make some simple 3" long bars of metal with 1/4" holes in the middle to hold the lights in.
You mount the lenses with the lettering upside down and swapped right for left to get the lense's shape to work best on our cars. There's a full-span rubber gasket behind the lense that needs a slight 1/4" angle cut at the bottom where no one will see it for the lenses to just slightly overlap the opening. If you get the lense off of a junkyard car, make sure to get the gasket.

You'll be amazed at how bright they are and how they jazz up a relatively bland and overlooked part of the car.

[markandson]

Wow, amazing fit for a light that was not intended for the car, looks like the bottom is just off a little bit, but overall it does look sweet.

[First opel 1981]

Originally Posted by thescifiguy I bought the ones on ebay($13 each) and they were the exact ones I've been looking for. I've uploaded an album of pictures of them mounted on my GT. If you want'em, they're from '82-'85 Toyota Supra's. The bulb is enclosed WITHIN the lens itself, rather than the idiotic oem's way with the bulb unenclosed and mounted entirely outboard of the lens, thereby using 75% of it's light to light up the inside of the car. I attached male spade connectors to the wire terminals so that I could just plug them into the existing wiring(In case you want to put the old ones back in with no fuss). The lens has two bolts about 1/2" long sticking out. I used the original big u-shaped brackets to hold them in by slightly enlarging the bolt hole and inverting them to form two crossing bars across the inside of the opening. You could use any number of ways to bend or cut down the original brackets or make some simple 3" long bars of metal with 1/4" holes in the middle to hold the lights in. You mount the lenses with the lettering upside down and swapped right for left to get the lense's shape to work best on our cars. There's a full-span rubber gasket behind the lense that needs a slight 1/4" angle cut at the bottom where no one will see it for the lenses to just slightly overlap the opening. If you get the lense off of a junkyard car, make sure to get the gasket. You'll be amazed at how bright they are and how they jazz up a relatively bland and overlooked part of the car.

Looks good from that angle. Do you have another picture from a straight on angle?

I was in my favorite wrecking yard a couple days ago and looked for the lights. I couldn't find a single Supra in there. I can't help but wonder if these lights might be just as hard to find.

[BQS4]

Originally Posted by First opel 1981 Looks good from that angle. Do you have another picture from a straight on angle? I was in my favorite wrecking yard a couple days ago and looked for the lights. I couldn't find a single Supra in there. I can't help but wonder if these lights might be just as hard to find.

There's two auctions on EBAY right now, and you can go to Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market and input the proper data and I found 2 pages of salvage yards listed with the lights.

[First opel 1981]

Originally Posted by BQS4 There's two auctions on EBAY right now, and you can go to Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market and input the proper data and I found 2 pages of salvage yards listed with the lights.

Where is the FUN in buying parts off of Ebay instead of getting them out of a wrecking yard?

[thescifiguy]

Here's more pics from my album:

http://www.opelgt.com/forums/members...-side-view.jpg

http://www.opelgt.com/forums/members...angle-view.jpg

http://www.opelgt.com/forums/members...-side-view.jpg

http://www.opelgt.com/forums/members...-side-side.jpg

[traytodd]

They look like they would go great with a GT-J trim package.