Banpei's two door panda Trueno from Japan

[banpei]

Thanks. I'll be going to have it "fixed" by a workshop. They said it was small enough to fix it. It will still be visible though.

About the fog light covers, I'm almost done. The paint process is going very slowly as I had to leave the lacquer layer to harden for a couple of days before I could apply the silver layer.
Pre-silver: (black + two layers of lacquer)


Silver applied:


There were some masking issues:

But that has been removed with a little bit of thinner. That's why the lacquer layer needed to be hardened out completely.

I've already applied the final layers of lacquer, and I'm now waiting for them to harden before polishing them and applying the stickers.

[decryphe]

Those foglight covers are shaping up really nicely!

[Power_uP]

Foglamp cover is looking nice.
I was about to turn this into a detailed post explaining how to avoid having paint run under the masking tape like that, but since the problem has been solved with thinner I'll avoid wasting everyone's time with my explanation.

[banpei]

Well, perhaps you could still share your masking tricks. I actually made a disaster using the thinner trick. I applied thinner and removed the underspray. However, the layer of lacquer underneath was probably contaminated by the thinner, and the final layers of lacquer had hazy spots where I used the thinner.

So I sanded off the hazy layers of lacquer, cleaned them thoroughly, masked up the silver part and painted the black part again. The result of 2 layers of primer, 3 layers of black paint, 2 layers of silver and 2 layers of black and then another 3 layers of lacquer:

I made some mistakes and some of them are visible. The most prominent mistake I made is at the top, and it's a section where I sanded off a bit too much. But it will do.

I applied the stickers and made another mistake:

In the rear one, the black triangle inside of the A is at the wrong position. I'll try to address that later or cut another sticker. But apart from that, I'm quite pleased with the result.

So I remodelled the covers after the zenki design:

Merged that with the lettering of the kouki design:


And this is the result:


Tomorrow I'll drop by the garage and see if I can do a testfit with only one single lamp. I'll try to reuse the first bracket that I made for the Cibie fog lights (the one that was made erroneously with the mounting at the bottom) and see how much I need to change from that design.

I also did something to insulate the battery bracket and created a new rod using a threaded rod from the local hardware store. I'll share photos of the results tomorrow.

[Koen]

That looks great! love the attention for detail

Do you need to add some wiring to open and close them? Or is this handled by the lights themselves?

[ondafly]

(05-18-2026 08:45 PM)Power_uP Wrote:  Foglamp cover is looking nice.
I was about to turn this into a detailed post explaining how to avoid having paint run under the masking tape like that, but since the problem has been solved with thinner I'll avoid wasting everyone's time with my explanation.

Please share the tecnique !

@Banpei - looking class, well done.

[banpei]

Thank you both for the compliments!

I 3D modelled and printed a cover for the battery bracket:

I also made an underside cover, but the bracket is too tight for the battery to also fit that.

I also created a new rod:

Looks much better than the weird spacer that I used previously.

The aluminium bracket I made last year for the Cibie fog lights is close, but I think it needs to be about 10 to 15 millimetres shorter: (so sitting 10 to 15 millimetres higher)

If you think it looks a bit saggy: you're right. One of the bolts to connect the lamp housing to the bracket has a squared section to keep it centred. This section is too long, and therefore, I couldn't tighten it enough and about 1mm of play remained between the lamp and the bracket. I'll add some washers on the final version to fix this issue.

Also, when opened, there is more than enough space available for the cover to open:


Here's the fog light in action:

It opens and closes using a third wire, so there is 12V+, ground and a signal wire (also 12V+). Only when the cover is fully open will the lamp illuminate. If I then remove power from the signal wire, the cover closes. A few 100ths of a second after the cover starts to rotate, the lamp will power off.

I did some testing: if I remove the power from both 12V+ and the signal wire, the covers will remain open. If I then only put power on the 12V+, it will close itself again. I don't know what will happen if it's stuck in the middle, whether it opens or closes itself. I'll have to test that, but my guess is that it will close itself by default if there is no power on the signal wire. This also means the fog light needs a 12V+ supply permanently for the motors.

I haven't disassembled them, so I don't know what's inside. My guess is there are only two switches and some TTL transistors to handle the logic. The two switches are used to determine whether the cover is in the open or closed position.

This is how I would make it work if I had to create a similar lamp:
Opening: If there is a signal and the closed-switch is on (cover in the closed position), it will open the cover. Only when the open-switch is on (cover in the open position), the switch will cut power to the motor and put power on the lamp.
Closing: Once power on the signal wire is lost, and the closed-switch isn't on, it will reverse polarity on the motor, and the cover will close. The open-switch will then get into the off position, and this cuts power to the lamp. Then, when the closed-switch is on, it will cut power to the motor.

As it will constantly draw current from the battery, I fear it might drain the battery. Perhaps there is some extra logic in it that will not use power on the 12V+ when the cover is in the closed position, and there is no power on the signal wire? I'll measure the current it draws when it's sitting in the idle position and see if this is the case. If not, I'll have to add an additional switch to remove the 12V+ power to ensure it doesn't drain the battery over time.

I'm also curious on how much power it actually uses when the lights are on. I think the lamps are LED (no afterglow after the power cuts to the lamp), so it might actually be neglicable.

[The Doctor]

Great work! That looks ace!

[banpei]

Thanks!

I measured the load on one of the fog lights, and it drew 27mA without the lamps turned on. I don't think I have to worry too much about it consuming too much power.

My curiosity was far too big, so I did a teardown on one of the fog lights:


Electrical tape was used to keep moisture out...

At least they also used some silicone kit to seal the glass and the reflector:


This is the inner guts of the lamp:

As expected, on the left is a set of gears with a motor and two switches. The motor and switches are connected to a logic board in the middle. The power comes in from the bottom and powers the logic board. This means the logic board is always powered on. I didn't expect a fancy logic board like this, but maybe this is just an off-the-shelf programmable board they used.

Finally, as I expected, the light bulb is an LED bulb:

There are no ratings on it, but I found similar bulbs rated either 7.5 watts or 15 watts. This means the maximum power it will draw won't be more than 15 to 30 watts in total. That's less than 2.5A, so I don't think it's an issue to draw 12V+ from the cabin. This makes wiring the fog lights a lot easier than I thought earlier. This way, the power to the fog lights will be switched by the ignition as well, and that also prevents it from draining the battery.