MitsuMans Illuminated Mitsubishi Modification
With
Bonus 1/24th scale model car and awards
Victor
Lopez, alias MitsuMan has done a modification on his GT that looks pretty
sharp. He had photos on Jeepers site, but
no text to accompany it except
for an e-mail describing the pictures. He is now working on a couple more
photos and when he
gets done I will modify this
page, but I put this here to show it can be done. I will include his text
from his e-mail temporarily
till the rest of the info comes
in.
Sorry for the delay fellas but
here's the pictures, they should be numbered 1-12.........
#1 shows the panel removed from
the car, front shot,.........
#2 shows the same but the back
of the panel where you can see the 4 metal doors that are form fitted to
the openings & a screw
is placed on top of each one
to show you the screws that will hold down the doors (which are weather
sealed) 4 to each door
#3 shows the panel removed &
illuminated in the way it would look with the parking lights on, on top
of my 3000 with a double
reflection off the shine of
my car,..........
#4 shows the same from afar..........
#5 shows the panel installed in my 3000 lighting up along with the cars parking lights on............
#6 shows the same but with the
brakes applied making the lettering light up even more brighter with the
brake lights, notice the
difference in light intensity..........
Vic has since sent me his directions, here they are copied and pasted from his e-mail as sent.
"If you own a 2nd generation
3KGT, your rear finish panel will be painted the same color as your car.
Under the paint however, the
panel is a red translucent plastic just like the 1st Gen panel,
so It may be possible to remove
the paint with plastic safe paint thinner (found in some hobby shops),
place a thick reverse vinyl
sticker of whatever lettering you want from the inside, & light it
like the 1st Gen panel.
I haven't done this for the
2nd Gens so I can't guarentee if it will definately work out well,
its just a possibility you may
want to explore. If you decide to go with a 1st Gen finish panel however,
you can get a new one from Tallahassi
for under $100, or used for about $25-$40. "
. You have to remove the entire
interior plastic panel insidethe trunk not just the small doors to access
the
turn signal/parkinglight bulbs,
& the door that hides the emergency jack. no, the entireplastic panel
must come off.
Its primarily held on by various
smallphilips head screws in odd locations, & little round plastic pin
heads
(with a little circle in the
center, push this in about a 1/4" so thepin can easily come off, but be
careful, they break easy)
but once youunscrew all of the
screws, remove the plastic pins, & the oddshaped black plastic buckets
that are screwed
down to the floor to access
thescrews holding the wall panel to the floor, the panel slips
right off.
so just lightly tug & see
where its holding on to. (at first, I thoughtI got em all & thought
it was just stuck & pulled
on it & ended up breaking
the plastic around one hidden screw) you'll need a small 1/4" ratchet with
an extension to
remove the 8 nuts holding on
the panel. 2 nuts are located around each reverse light housing & 4
more towards the
center of the panel (2 upper,
2 lower) almost there! The tail lamps are held on by 2 nuts each, &
the tail lamps must be
removed in order to remove the
finish panel because they slightly overlap the the panel at the edges.
after the tail lamps
are removed. the panel will
come off after a slight slapping on the sides to loosen it up, or tap the
panel
bolts from the inside with the
rear plastic section of a screwdriver (or other non-metal object so you
you don't
damage the threads on the bolts).
I cut a already black plastic wall divied section of the back of
the panel with a Dremel tool.
I used the same type of bulbs (10 bulbs, one for each letter for best lighting)
that is used
in the tail lamps (#1175 I belive).
they are double filament one meant for parking lights (dimly lit) one meant
for
braking lights (very bright).
I used twist & lock socket housings from Pepboys & used 4 Industrial-epoxy
putty tubes
from Home Depot to build a foundation
for the sockets (& the nuts meant to hold on the doors) secured the
flat edging
so the door panels can fit seamless
(I used plastic trimming from Pearl arts & crafts), & formed
the interior structure of the
panel (this epoxy putty is great, you can drill it, sand it, it molds like
clay sets
like steel, & withstands
the heat from the bulbs without any problems). for the doors I cut &
shaped
some metal panels that I got
from Pearls too (they had to be metal because of the heat from the bulbs)
you really
want to make the panel air tight
(you don't want any moisture/water build up in there later on)
. with the exception of the
openings of the reverse lights that get sealed with the placement of the
reverse
socket housing. The wiring is
pretty much self explanatory, the base of the locking sockets are ground,
& I just
soldered each of them to a fat
ground wire to the cars frame. The 1157 bulb has two contacts (one for
each filament)
that contact the bottom of the
locking sockets, that's were the two wires behind the sockets come from.
I just soldiered these wires
in two groups, parking & brake & ran them to one tail lamp to their
designated
hot wire with radio shack/3M
quick connectors (you can easily find the hot wire with a 12V tester) &
up the
parking light fuse +5 amps (don't
worry, its still safe) & DONT FORGET THE WIRE PROTECTOR JACKETS (you
know, plastic flex tube, slips
over hot wires to prevent ground outs, hey you never know).
You could use some silicon to
finish the job around wire entrances small openings & such. I useto
use a vinyl sticker to
border the lettering on the
outside of the panel. but it didn't work very well (scratches easy, fades
& dulls, & peels & hangs).
The best thing to do is paint
the panel black from the inside around the letters (this is pretty easy
& comes out very sharp
because the lettering edges
are raised in reverse on the inside & any paint blemishes can be cleaned
sharply with your fingernail even)
The rest of the area. you can
leave it like that, or go one step further & smoke out the exterior
of the panel with some tint spray.
This spray just gives the panel
a translucent slightly dark shade (lighter or darker depends on how many
coats you give it) &
you might want to conceder doing
this to your tail lamps too. looks very sharp IMO. well good luck with
it & hope it comes
out good.=)
Cheers, vic
My Toys
Below are 2 shots of my 1/24
scale model of my Sandstone gray (BTW my color is kina rare too dont you
think?)
3000GT which was in GTO specs,
as well as AREO specs, but as you can see I changed the wing & removed
the sabb
lights & colored the rear
L & R tail lamp tips a complete red instead of the nasty amber that
the GTO comes with,
(sorry GTO owners out there,
but you gotta admit the completely red tail lamps that the 3000 gets here
in the states
is way better looking than the
the amber tips that the GTOs come with everywhere else) but as you can
see the
left side is ruined because
stupid me left it on my dash & the sun started to melt it,
notice the fake peel out smoke
behind the right rear tire,
I did that with cotton &
cigarette ashes, & notice the plaque it sits on, I modded one of those
4 AA battery powered
florescent lights (& spray
painted it blue) fixtures to sit under the car to give it that street glow
effect, & what you cant see
is the municipal N.J. license
plate on the back & even an inspection sticker in the bottom left corner
of the
front windshield (I didn't post
because the pics came out blurry) its about 2 years old & as you can
see I had
way too much time on my hands
at that time............
1:24 Grey plastic model is made by Tamiya LTD. Japan.
1/10 scale AWD TRUE BLUE
PEARL MITSUBISHI 3000GT R/C RACING CAR W/VR4 WING
(the car is about 18'' long)............
The 1:10 Blue 2nd Generation R/C lexan body is made
by the Tozai Model Factory (TMF) Japan,
Photo below shows the same 1/10
scale MITSUBISHI 3000GT in my living room along next to my
MITSUBISHI 60'' BIG SCREEN TV,
& next to the 3000 you'll see my MITSUBISHI MUG with 24K gold plated
MITSUBISHI lettering that I
received while selling MITSUBISHI'S & JAGUARS, but what
you don't see is the 2 MITSUBISHI
VCR's that sit on top of the TV. (now try saying ''MITSUBISHI'' 10 times
fast) ahh
what the hey I got so many MITSUBISHI
products, people call me the hispanic oriental
(what can I say, they make a
good product)
1 of my ''2'' FIRST GENERATION
1/10 scale 3000GT's kit comes with everything you see
here, stickers, 2 piece paintable
wing, instructions (its all japanese to me) & it even comes with side
mirrors
(which almost NO 1/10 bodies
include) when I saw the ad & called up the place in california (which
was their only distributor)
& found out that they were DISCONTINUED :( & ONLY HAD 2 LEFT!
I had to have them so I had
to dish out a little over $80.00 for each :( hey, I know I got robbed,
but for a
MITSUBISHI 3000GT fan like me
I would have paid 4 or 5 times that amount if I had too.
1:10 1st Generation GTO Lexan body was made by Yokomo LTD. Japan.
To contact Victor Lopez (Mitsuman) click here
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Photos and text Copyright John
C. Adams Use prohibited without authorization.
For questions send e-mail Last Update9/20/98
