Today I installed the new fog lights I had purchased for the GTM over the winter. I’ve been dying to swap out the generic fog lights that FFR supplies with these new Hella Optilux 2500 lights. These lights are way brighter than the stock lights, and have sharp looking halo LED lighting accents. I’ve never felt that comfortable with the GTM’s lighting on prior twilight drives, but these new fogs make all the difference.

Since the lights use separate wiring for the LED halos and the 55w halogen bulbs I decided to hook up the halo rings to the parking lights, and the fog lamp switch remains dedicated to the main bulbs. The bracket that comes with the lights is a ‘hanging design’ bracket, so I had Josh modify them so they could be surface mounted in the fog light recesses. A carriage bolt was inserted into the bracket to bolt it in place using the previous fog light holes. I’m really pleased with the look of these lights.

Finally, the interior is nearly complete. With the driver dash pod re-glued and ready for install I cleaned up some wiring that will be under the dash, wired the transmission oil cooler LED indicator, then installed the pod. Before riveting in place I attached the air duct and dash switches for camera and lights. Dash pod was then riveted into place, and then the gauge face was plugged in and screwed down.  I then threw on the steering column cover and screwed that in place.

I wanted to add some accent lighting to the footboxes so I purchased some LED light strips. These strips are very thin, very bendy, and have an adhesive back so they can be stuck just about anywhere. I opted to stick them on the frame members running across each footbox under the dash. The power and ground wires were soldered together and will be connected to a switch on the dash when that is installed.

I also mounted the switches that will power the LED lights and video activation to the driver dash pod.

Today I finished up bolting the passenger seat in, and then wired up the license plate LED lights. The seat was a chore, as it took forever to get the bolts to line up perfectly with the rivnuts at the front of the seat. Also, since rivnuts and I get along so well, I ended up having to re-tap the rivnuts at one point since they got scuffed up trying to line up the bolts blindly. All good though, as the passenger seat is rock solid.

Afterwards, I soldered up the LED wires and connected them to some quick disconnect plugs and spliced those into the taillight wiring.

I’ve delayed the fog lights installation until now because I simply did not know what to do with the lights provided by Factory Five. They have a funky bracket on the top, and do not have a rear post that mounts through a hole in the fog light recess as shown in the build manual. FFR advised me to ‘just flip the bracket back and attach through that’, however the bracket is positioned so that it is impossible to center the light, plus it would stick out way too far. No thanks.

As a solution I did the following:
1. Remove the brackets, silicone the holes left from the bracket screws.
2. Remove the wire grommet
3. Drill a 3/8″ hole next to the wire grommet hole, recess the edges a bit with a dremel tool, and push the grommet/wires through that new hole.
4. Push a long bolt w/ washer (I used a 1/4-20)  through the former wire grommet hole and secure it on the back of the housing with a jam nut. The hole is centered perfectly so this bolt acts as a post to mount the light through the recess with.
5. Drill a 1/4″ hole centered in the fog light recess. Drill a smaller hole next to it for the wires.
6. Run the wires through, push the fog light into the recess, secure with a lock nut and washer.

Having to prep the lights is a pain, but it works. After the lights were installed I attached and loomed their wiring up.

After all that, I took the clamps off the side louvers since the adhesive has cured – solid as a rock and they look great. Silicone’d the rear mesh pieces into place.

Today was pretty productive. First thing on the agenda was to install the headlight cover panels. The cover panels mount to a diagonal support that rivets into the underside of the hood, and into the bottom lip of the body. It took a while to figure out the proper angle for mounting this so that the headlight cover, when put in place, would not hit the back of the headlights, nor interfere with the tires when turned all the way left/right. After some trial and error I got the support bar clecko’d in place, drilled out and clecko’d the headlight cover, then riveted it all.

After doing the headlight covers I jacked the car up and pulled off the passenger rear tire. The wheel well closeout panels are pretty straight forward. I forgot to snap a pic of the well closed out before putting the tire back on, but I will get one later. I did not rivet the front rear wheel well panel in place yet as I have to assemble my side duct louvers, have them powdercoated, and then finally install them first. Didn’t feel like doing the driver’s side rear well today so I moved on to applying mesh to the fender louvers up front.

I used some aluminum mesh screen material and cut long oval pieces of mesh to fit over each louver vent under the hood. I sprayed the mesh black first before getting ready to install it. Once they dried I siliconed them in place and taped them up to dry/cure over night. These should look real nice when done, as well as prevent any big debris from coming up through the louvers and onto the hood, windshield, etc.