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My New SC Tinker Toy :)

9K views 36 replies 12 participants last post by  wowcoolbro 
#1 ·
Hey guys.

First off, thanks for all the great DIY submissions on this forum. I've gotten a lot of great ideas looking at everyone's work.

I hated these cars when they first came out, but I've been watching my bud tinker with his Element since 2003 & have since fallen in love with them. This is my new 2007 SC. It's my tinker toy :)

Here's My 2007 SC with my bud's. I think his username might be Goonage on this forum.
 
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#2 ·
I bought my SC maybe 6 weeks ago. I went straight to work as soon as I got her home. The first thing I did was black out the grill with Forever Black. It looks lame, but it'll do for now. I also had the windows tinted. The tint added a lot for style for not a lot of coin.

 
#3 ·
The next thing I did was buy a lot of LED's. I'm still working on this...it's going to be a perpetual project for awhile. I added floor lighting, but don't have pictures to show because I took it out & ordered RGB lights to replace them. Stay tuned for that.

I also replaced my rear brake light with an LED strip. This is how I did it...
This is some wire shielding I bought to house computer wire spaghetti under my desk...



The shielding is a rectangular tube that clips along one corner. I cut the top off, with the curled lip.



I then tucked the LED against the curled portion of the plastic strip.



I removed the stock brake light & fished the wire back to the left corner, so I could feed it through the rubber wire boot thingy over there. The wire running to the brake light looks impressive; lots of shielding, a fancy clip, & a thick paper tape wrapping it along the inside of the door frame. Just yank it through; all that stuff, and it's only 2 wires!

Once I got to the wire boot, I had to figure out a way to get to the hatch door. I decided to cut a hole in the boot, pull the wire through, and make a Shoe Goo patch. Here's a picture of it taped up while it dries. I'll post a finished pic or video later.



I have more details to show, but I either have to take more pics or post the videos I took. Again, stay tuned, & I'll show you the coolest way I found to mount the light! Here's a finished pic...

 
#4 ·
When my tiny LEDs came in the mail, I set to work on two projects. The first is the LED cup holder. I used the same lights and method as the great LED cup holder post on this forum. Here's my design. It runs off a 9V battery; the connector is Shoe Gooed on the underside of the cup holder.







Everything is wired to a switch I placed between the cups.



I later flipped the LEDs so they were pointing down, adhered to the rubber tab, instead of against the side of the cup holder. The LEDs were shining in my eyes when I got in the car before I changed it.

I've also made a pretty awesome addition to the cup holder mod, but, you guessed it...gotta stay tuned for pics of that :)

 
#5 ·
This is a rad ambient light for the car. There are 2 LED's just inside the door on the floor of the tray. Inside there the floor slopes down to meet the mesh. I mounted the LEDs on that slope so they illuminate the ceiling of the compartment well. There's a switch mounted just above the map lights.



You can't see the LEDs directly from any angle if you place them here.



Great interior light!

 
#8 ·
Nice job! 8) Thanks for sharing, looking forward to seeing your other mods.

Curious as to why you wired your cup holder l.e.d.s to a 9volt battery instead of a 12volt source. Also, mounting your l.e.d.s under those rubber tabs pointing down may not hold up for very long, as when you place bottles/cups in the openings, it will push down on the tabs and move the thin ribbon back & forth and could eventually cause that ribbon to rip/tear.
 
#9 ·
I put the cup holder on a 9V because it was easy. I'll hard wire it later.
If the lights fall off (which they probably will eventually) I'll Shoe Goo them down. IMO flipping the lights downward has pros & cons...it illuminates the cup holder better & doesn't shine in my eyes when I'm getting in the car, but it also doesn't illuminate clear cups & bottles as well.
 
#10 ·
Cool mods. Can't wait to see what's next.
 
#11 ·
Nice mods so far thanks for the pics and write up. Really like the LED's in the cargo bins.
 
#12 ·
Okay...I have more pics.

This is how the brake light came together...

The light is almost invisible. The plastic strip slipped between the glass and the window frame perfectly. You can only see about 3/4" of the plastic, and a cord tucked neatly in one corner.



I was able to hold the light in place simply by rolling up bits of foam rubber & stuffing it in the cracks. There's one larger roll in each corner, not more than an inch long, & I stuffed 5 or 6 small plugs along the length.



 
#15 ·
This is the nifty switch I installed in my engine compartment.



These are the nifty lights attached to the switch.



There are 4 white LED strips in my engine compartment. These strips are directional, which allowed me to point the light at the engine instead of my eyes.



This is my best attempt to show you the location of the other 2 strips. Note: this view is upside down.

 
#19 ·
The HVAC lighting required 2 holes for each light. There's a small panel that goes over the radio; I didn't want the lights to be attached to this, making it a hassle to pull the piece on/off. So I drilled holes through the internal plastic & mounted the lights there, then drilled matching holes in the detachable panel. I had to make the holes in the panel larger in order to get a good spread with the light. The beams are still a little narrow & would look better if I pulled the lights forward so they hit the tops of the dials. I'm going to re-visit these lights at some point and do just that. For now I think they still look pretty good.





 
#24 ·
So, I got this Element in part as a good ski vehicle. I already know what you're going to say; why a 2wd SC? Well, since most of my driving won't be going to mountain, I'll get by with some nice snow tires. I'm not going off-road; I'm traveling highway & watching the reports for the nice days.

Other than missing 4wd, this is the perfect ski vehicle. But it needs mats to protect the carpet from all the snow and mud...





Ah. That's better. But what about the ski boots?



Yup. A cargo tray will do nicely.
But what if it's dark, wet, cold, & raining & I lose the keys while packing the car?
How 'bout we replace all the interior lights with super bright LED's so I can see where they went...



What's missing...oh yeah, a place to put the skis.



Now all I have to do is wait for the ski attachment to come in the mail :)
 
#28 ·
Yes, I'm familiar with your post:
http://www.elementownersclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74727&highlight=
This is one of the posts I checked out while planning my brake light. Clever solution for your mounting needs, & I especially like the extra long light.

The tricky part was getting the lights to point the right direction. Your lights required a structure. Mine had sticky tape on the backside, giving me the choice of sticking it on the outside of the car or making this structure. All of this could be avoided by putting some kind of clear adhesive on the other side; the light could be stuck to the interior of the glass, and would shine outside.

I forgot to show this; this is all you see of the cord when the clam shell is closed...about 3" of tube. Here you can see a final view of the trim, too. Sorry it's so dark...I'm using 2 flashlights and a dome light to take this iPad pic this evening :S

 
#27 ·
Nice stuff!

I might try that HM brake light idea. :)
 
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