***not exactly a step by step DIY, mainly tips on it, FYI
First.... if your wondering, my car is fixed, accident pics are old from March, my baby is back and better than ever!
When installing el wire there are many options to choose from. If you are only adding a strip to a certain area make sure you make measurements..... one way to get a good idea of how much el wire you will need is with a simple piece of string. Run the string where you want your luminescent wire to be then measure the string..... give or take thats about how long your el wire needs to be. You can normally find el wire in 5ft and 10ft lengths at an autoparts store in the ricer aisle, or online..........
But if your doing a complete job--all 4 doors and dash (or more!)--its best to get custom el wire.
Once you get your el wire, its a fairly simple install..... where do you want your el wire, and how are you gonna keep it in place........
This DIY is how I did it:
After ordering your el wire (i custom ordered mine from live wire,
Live Wire - The Worlds Brightest EL Wire Guaranteed!) pop off your door panels and wipe them down.
You then want to lay a thin bead of clear silicon where you want your wire and begin placing.
Placing the el wire in the silicon is one of the longer steps due to the fact u must hold it in place until it dries...... I used no tools for this, and smeared extra silicon over the wire to speed up the process ***Run a bead of silicon ahead of what your working on, so it somewhat dries a bit and becomes tacky.
Once all door panels have your el wire firmly glued, secured, and dried you can put your door panels back in:
**you dont have to put the panels in just yet if you dont want to, but i did..... so you might save your car interior a mess if you wait for your door panels to be 100% complete.
CLOSE UP OF EL WIRE SECURED IN PANEL WITH SILICON:
After I put my panels back in i began to trim, rub, and wipe excess silicon off of the door panel.
BEGIN REMOVAL OF EXCESS SILICON
80% OF THE EXCESS SILICON HAS BEEN REMOVED
El wire is lit, working properly, and secure........... If you have a hard time removing silicon from trouble spots just give it time to dry. I wasnt able to clean it all off the first day, and it wasnt completely cured. This mod took WEEKS to do, not because of difficulty, but of daily life constraints, so when i had an hour or two I would work on removing excess silicon.
**ARMOUR ALL INTERIOR WIPES WERE MY SECRET WEAPON TO GETTING IT ALL OFF--Im sure any wet wipe would do, but keep in mind this is after days of rubbing with my hands, dry towels and sponges.... for some reason those wipes really KOed this stuff and finished up the interior nicely.
And if you still cant remove the silicon, they have a silicon remover that slowly removes silicon, but its removed in layers and you will probably need to touch up with silicon remover more that once if you accidently got silicon in a real bad spot where it seems to never wanna come off.
This was never the case in my interior.
HOWS THAT FOR RICE FOO!
"New Blue"--? I guess
Admin's Lexus IS350
2007 Chevy Cobalt
My truck?
Linear Mode
