Today I finished up a very near and dear project. My headlight brackets. Now inorder to make suitable headlight brackets that adequately integrated into the mounting poing I had on the intercooler and the bumper retainer bar while remaining nice looking, I decided on two things. They had to be strong and they had to be aluminum.
I took some measurements and went off and purchased some cut pieces of 10mm thick 6061 T6 aluminum. Once I had those, I drill some holes and mocked everything up to determine the location of the upright portion of the bracket. Once those measurements were spot the fuck on, I had a friend weld them up for me. In order to prevent scrating and bending on the intercooler top surface I added some 15mm Hard rubber bumpers to the bottom of the bracket, drilled some more holes and the results of that labor are below. If you compare this to the cheap ass bent up wannabe bracket that I had before, I think you will agree that this approach was not only better looking but much better for the entire thing. Everything is solid with these brackets. I then mocked up a piece of 90 degree 3mm angled aluminum. I will cut it and edge it down to size and mount it to the brackets. This piece of angle will be the support structure for my air dam.
Next was the doors. When we put the door latches on in the stock positions, they barely caught the second latching point and when they did, the ody lines were off by about 1/4 inch (door sunk in), so I had a friend of mine modify the door latch stryker by illongating the holes by 150 percent and what we have as a result is not only a perfectly latching door, but the body lines are all nice and lined up without compromising the purpose of the weather stripping.
Next up, I will finish up and induction llens (I gutted the lights out of it) that I have been working on and will finish up with mounting the hood pins, the front CF ducts and the interior panels (will be plastic for the rear).
Pics Below As Usual.
Old Headlight Bracket full of Fail -
Body Lines - ( I do not have before shots)