With some help from Mooneyes,...        read full caption With some help from Mooneyes, Lambert Enterprises, and HTP America, Jason Avila was able to make relatively short work of frenching '49-'50 Ford taillights into his '51 Ford.

The Mooneyes frenching buckets...        read full caption The Mooneyes frenching buckets are deep, so you can tunnel the lenses as much as you see fit. Jay wanted the lenses to just peek past the body, so they'd be slightly visible from the side. Planning on framing the lenses with a 1/4-inch piece of cold roll rod, Jay made sure to account for the added depth when deciding on how much to trim the buckets. The buckets were installed from the inside of the car, rather than welding them on the outside.

Jay figured the buckets would...        read full caption Jay figured the buckets would need to be trimmed about an inch to place the lenses in the desired spot. Wanting to retain the original body shape of the quarter-panel, Jay used 1/2-inch masking tape to mark not only where to cut, but also to match the body curvature.

Some aspects of building a custom car are almost sacred and automatically become part of the plan, even before a formal plan is hatched. For many of us, frenched taillights are as much a necessity on our rides as, say, shaved door handles. In our minds, part of the fun of building a custom is knowing we'll be frenching the lights, regardless of whether they're original units or something swapped from a different car.

When you stop to think about it, there are probably hundreds of taillight shapes and configurations out there waiting to be adapted to other cars. Picking one out is only half the fun; the other half is installation--cutting, welding, grinding, and putting everything back together to make it look factory. Of course, we can't forget about the style aspect. Whatever taillight we choose should flow with the car so it looks like it grew there. This brings us full circle to considering the original taillights and seeing if they can be modified for a custom fit without a ton of bodywork. This, too, is a creative and rewarding way to achieve a cool custom look.

The project at hand started when Jason Avila of Riverside, California, laid his eyes on one of Jimmy Smith's bitchin' custom rod '49-'50 Ford renderings a few issues back (pictured at the top of this page). Not only did he fall in love with the unconventional-yet-traditional styling, he figured it would be a relatively easy car to build, as he already owned a super straight '51 Ford sedan. Once the original taillights were removed from the body, Jason was happy to learn that the quarter-panels of the '51 were the same as the earlier '49 and '50 bodies. Then he just had to locate a set of '49-'50 taillights and start planning how they would be installed.

After talking with some custom car buddies, Jason learned that Mooneyes offers a frenching kit for '49-'50 Ford taillights, as well as two custom lens options--one with a bullet in the center and the other more similar to an old Cal Custom bubble-style lens. For that matter, he could've used original lenses, but Jason was after a more distinct look. He chose the bubble-style lenses.

The task of lighting the new taillights properly also came to mind. These lights aren't exactly large, so Jason wanted to make sure they were easily seen. One look on the Lambert Enterprises Web site told him all he needed to know about using LEDs instead of the traditional bulbs. Lambert offers these bright little light panels for numerous factory taillight housings, and an almost equal number of custom configurations. LED lights are bright and give off almost no heat. This is nice when you consider that traditional light bulbs can emit enough heat to melt plastic lenses if placed too close. The LEDs can sit almost right up against plastic lenses with no worry of melting.

So to round all this out, we have a set of Mooneyes '49-'50 Ford frenching buckets and bubble-style lenses, and a pair of LED lights from Lambert Enterprises to install. All in all, this job was easily finished in a weekend and required only normal bodyworking tools to accomplish. Keep in mind as you're looking though the photos that these taillights can be installed in any number of ways. Jason modified the frenching buckets and tailored the installation to meet his tastes. You can use these ideas or come up with others that reflect your own personality while also looking stylish on the car. Isn't that what the hobby is all about?

As mentioned before, a piece...        read full caption As mentioned before, a piece of 1/4-inch cold roll rod was used to frame the lens, as well as to give the opening a nice rounded edge. Jay used the stock lenses for mock-up purposes throughout the process. It took him a minute or two, and a few million brain cells, to figure out how to cleanly bend the rod to the proper shape.	Jay decided to cut the desired...        read full caption Jay decided to cut the desired shape from 1/4-inch steel plate, and then weld the plate directly to a steel workbench top for a solid jig to form the rod around. He used his HTP America MicroCut 380 plasma cutter to cut the heavy steel plate as cleanly as possible. With one end of the rod welded firmly to the table as well, Jay only needed a little heat from a torch to persuade it around the plate.	Once the rod was cut loose...        read full caption Once the rod was cut loose and cooled down a little, it was held in place on the car and used as a pattern to mark the area that needed to be cut from the body. Again, the HTP plasma cutter came in handy for making a clean, fast cut.
Here you can see the shaped...        read full caption Here you can see the shaped cold roll rod completely welded to the body, which will eventually frame the taillight lens nicely.	With a few swipes of body...        read full caption With a few swipes of body filler and a little sanding, the new rounded taillight lens opening started to take shape the way Jay had envisioned.	There was still a bit of jagged...        read full caption There was still a bit of jagged sheetmetal that needed to be cleaned up on the inside area of the taillight surround...
...A 4-1/2-inch electric grinder...        read full caption ...A 4-1/2-inch electric grinder and a pneumatic grinder with various small grinding bits were used to fine-tune the opening,	With the bodywork out of...        read full caption With the bodywork out of the way, Jay went to work deciding how to secure the taillight buckets to the body from the inside. For ease of installation, and any unforeseen future needs, he decided to pop out a couple of tabs for each bucket from some flat strap steel.	Once the tabs were welded...        read full caption Once the tabs were welded to the buckets, Jay welded a couple of bolts directly to the body. Presto--the buckets were mounted! Jay did spend some time fitting the buckets to the car by slowly grinding the edges.
To properly illuminate the...        read full caption To properly illuminate the taillights, Jay ordered this kit from Lambert Enterprises. It included a pair of LED panels, wiring, and mounting hardware. LED lights are a great option for bright lights with low heat. They also last much longer than conventional bulbs.	Here's a close-up look at...        read full caption Here's a close-up look at the card that houses 48 small Light Emitting Diodes--or LEDs--plus a circuit board that handles the brake and running light functions. Jay modified the Mooneyes buckets by first building a surround to hold the LED panels, and then welding the surround into the buckets.	Finally, we got a good look...        read full caption Finally, we got a good look at the new lenses mounted in the car and could analyze their placement within the body. At this point, the fit was easily fine-tuned by spacing the buckets with washers or even grinding the housings a little more here and there.