DIY part # for ABL (Pictures of Installation included!!!)

[Huggerorange73]

Originally Posted by camaro2lt

God i want this mod soo bad just i dont think i can pull it off ofer can you please come to canada in june soo you can do this to my car lol

I'm going to be doing mine shortly....and I'll be in Oshawa in June. If you're not hooked up by then, we can knock it out up there.

[camaro2lt]

Originally Posted by Huggerorange73

I'm going to be doing mine shortly....and I'll be in Oshawa in June. If you're not hooked up by then, we can knock it out up there.

that sounds great thanks soo much we will keep in contact

[Huggerorange73]

Originally Posted by camaro2lt

that sounds great thanks soo much we will keep in contact

Not a problem!

[Dr.Bender]

I do have to say, we have some cool folks here!

[TJ91]

Originally Posted by Gene Culley

Ok, so I had some fun today with the ABL. I'll post some pictures below, but it wasn't a fun day, lol. The angle to get the tubes to backlight the panel is a bit** to get figured out and get put in there correctly. I'm very picky so it took me some time to get the passenger side done.

The driver side is a real joy to work with. I had to cut the pipe down like 3 times because I had too much pipe in there. I'm not 100% happy with how far the panel comes out, from the top, on the driver side, but it is what it is I guess. From looking at the other pictures here, others have the same gap in the drivers panel at the top. It is really hard to photograph the lighting properly, but it looks really cool when you sit in the vehicle.

Thanks to everyone here for giving me the information and thanks to Ofer for some information and the harness and pipes.

If anyone has any better idea of how to cut down the gap in the drivers panel at the top, let me know. It isn't huge or anything, but sticks out further than I think it should. The pictures are lousy, because it does not appear to be 100% even, but it is, but I did the best I could since the ABL is hard to photograph.

I will probably be doing my own write-up in a different thread about all of the modifications I'll be doing to my vehicle.

From the pics that looks great!
Did you have to tape up the pannels?
Great work, i cant wait to get my parts in to do this mod. Damn shipping lol

[2SSRS@Gen5diy]

Originally Posted by camaro2lt

God i want this mod soo bad just i dont think i can pull it off ofer can you please come to canada in june soo you can do this to my car lol

I am thinking of coming up to Canada, but i dont know if i can stand Bing in the same country as my brother. LOL

[Gene Culley]

Originally Posted by 2SSRS

Look's good and i am working the drivers side, Did you heat it up to make it get closer?

Hey Ofer. No, I didn't heat it up. Are you wanting me to heat up the tube or the panel?

[Gene Culley]

Originally Posted by Dr.Bender

NICE!

Originally Posted by Dr.Bender

I do have to say, we have some cool folks here!

Thanks man! There are some cool people here. I guess the real deal is about having a nice car and good people helping out other good people with their modifications!

[Gene Culley]

Originally Posted by TJ91

From the pics that looks great!
Did you have to tape up the pannels?
Great work, i cant wait to get my parts in to do this mod. Damn shipping lol

It looks great in person, too. Actually it looks better in person hehe. I didn't tape the panels at all.

There are a couple of things I think may be helpful to others here that I could say. "73Vette" helped me with out the alignment of the reflective strip

Basically if you look in through my passenger door or the windshield you can see the red reflecting off the reflective strip right up onto the dash. So what I'm saying is, if you look down behind there at night, you can see the red reflection. I have the IOM interior, which is why it looks red. GM calls it super orange on the actual tag. My wife says it looks like a neon tube back there, and that is the red reflecting off the white reflective strip causing the neon glow. In the end that reflective strip needs to point the right way or you're not going to get the glowing effect.

The other problem I was having was I was trying to completely push the panel back in and you cannot do that unless you sand it or else you won't see the lighting. If you go for the effect I did, and others here too, you can push the panel about 3/4 of the way back in and it fits in snugly with leaving a small gap at the top. It fits more snugly because the tube is back there taking up space. The small gap is left for the reflective strip to shed the light on the dash. Like I said, you can look down behind there at night and see the red tube, which looks neon. During the day, you can see the white reflective strip, so it looks like it belongs there.

My right side tube was 34 inches long. I made no adjustments after that. My left side was 4 1/4 inches long, but I had to cut about 1/8 or 1/4 off 3 times to get it to fit in there the way I wanted it to, so I'd say 3 1/2 to 3 3/4 inches. You could start at 4 and gradually take off pieces until you were comfortable.

On the passenger side, the holes to put the lights through are on the outisde of the retainers. This makes it easy as the lights don't get in the way of the retainers.

On the left side, the retainers are on the outside, so you have to get the wires in the holes before the retaining holes and then move the wires and tube out further to go all the way across. I'll write up another thread and post pictures, but the left is more troublesome than the right and I thought it would be the opposite way around!

I want to drive the vehicle and see how everything is and if everything is ok then I'll mess with the left side a little bit more to see if I can get it more to my liking.

[2SSRS@Gen5diy]

Originally Posted by Gene Culley

Hey Ofer. No, I didn't heat it up. Are you wanting me to heat up the tube or the panel?

On the driver side to get the gap smaller i use a heat gun to bend the pip to the shape of the trim part,If you dont then the end will stick out more then i like, The trim and dash have a big bend at the end and it will hold the end out farther, But first know where you want the white strip to be or you will bend it and it will not reflect the light.

[Kilo-9]

Can someone post pics of the trim panels in the daylight? I'd like to see how the panels look with the gap.

[Gene Culley]

Originally Posted by 2SSRS

But first know where you want the white strip to be or you will bend it and it will not reflect the light.

Ofer, yes, this could certainly be an issue, lol. I think I will stick with the way it is for the moment.

[Gene Culley]

Originally Posted by Kilo-9

Can someone post pics of the trim panels in the daylight? I'd like to see how the panels look with the gap.

Sure, once I get it outside to take decent pictures I will.

[Mike2ss]

wow, cool mod, again simple and we can do it.