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1989 Sedan DeVille - current daily driver (29) »
schlicky13 November 5, 2012
A closeup of the opera lamps I added. I went to great pains to get them installed as close to the OEM location as possible while also lining them up with the sail panel emblems and having them look good, with... mixed results. Turned out the sail panel emblems had been removed at some point and put back on or replaced, and whoever did it didn't get them in the exact same location on both sides of the cars. So despite installing the opera lamps in exactly the same location on both sides, this side doesn't quite look right to me. If I ever pull the emblems off again (I replaced every single emblem on the car with NOS emblems right after I bought it, since most were faded, damaged, missing, etc.) I might change the location to line them up with the opera lamps a little better. One thing to be aware of if you ever use these opera lamps (they're not OEM, made by GEM I think), the covers absolutely hate the sun! They looks pretty good for 6-8 months, by the end of a year they had begun to yellow, and eventually were so bad that with the blue EL paper that I used to light them, the lights looks like a sickly green at night. I've since remedied this since I happened to have a set of OEM covers off of another Cadillac (I have no clue what year, I'd had them for awhile from when I was trying to piece together a full set of OEM lamps before giving up and using aftermarket ones), and those covers were a very close match to the aftermarket ones. They were slightly narrower (like an 1/8", barely noticeable), about a half inch longer and don't protrude out nearly as far. There was plenty of extra material at the top and bottom of the aftermarket housings, so a few minutes with a dremel had the OEM covers fitting into the housings snug as a bug, and since they would snap in like the old ones, I "glued" them in with some clear synthetic caulk. It should hold them in tight enough that they won't fall out, it's completely clear so you can't see it unless you stick your face right in the lamp and look for it, and unless you again stick you face right in the lamp, you can't tell that the covers weren't meant for these lamps and that I've done some work with a dremel. I haven'e take any pictures yet, but they look much better with the OEM covers, which considering they're 20-30 years old and still look brand new, shouldn't have any issues with sun damage.

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