The Black Beasty - 1970 GT6+

(missing lights and crappy bondo job)

   I went nuts trying to decide whether to bother putting the lights back in, as I really didn't want to find out what was under that bondo. Although the putty work sucked, the underlying metal work was not that bad.  I've come to find, there was a rather wide diversification of tail light formats used on the late MKII and GT6+.  Some had two lights each side, one turn and one backup per side. Others had one turn and one reflector only per side, with a central 'hump' in the middle that housed the license plate lamps and a single back up light in the middle of the car. (as this one should have had)  Still another variation was amber turn signals with red reflectors.  These days, these replacement panels usually have NO light hole cut outs due to these variations in formats.

    So after much contemplation, I decided to go with just re-installing the turn signal lights, using the red lenses I had here. The reverse light is in the 'pod' at the center above the license plate.

       I ended up spending nearly two days, just ripping out all the peeling bondo, and hammering flat all the metal work of the lower valence panel. I then only needed a comparatively thin (< 0.2" ) bondo layer to finish things off. This was much better than the roughly 1" of bondo that WAS there.  I prefer to use polyester resin as it does not absorb moisture like 'the pink stuff' and is much harder.  Then is was simply a matter of drilling and cutting out holes to remount the turn signal lights properly.

   Before bolting the bumpers back on, I re-enforced the fender sheet metal from the inside, by welding in metal donuts. Hopefully this will strengthen the sheet metal enough to not allow them to 'bend down' so easily as is so common with these small bumperettes.