Mach 5 with working lights

What was I going to use for lighting? I had purchased some LED X-mas replacement lights last x-mas season, but hadn't looked at them since. That was the first time that I saw replacement Xmas LED bulbs for sale. I found them at Menards, a home improvement center owned by NASCAR driver Paul Menard's billionaire father. They come in 3-packs. All white, all red, all blue, and a green/orange/and yellow combo. They are about 5mm across. Best of all they are only $1.19 per 3-pack. They are rated 2V for red and 3.4 V for white. All the colors say "0.02 amps max". 

1 red bulb @ 2volts + 1 blue bulb @ 3.4 volts + 1 white bulb @ 3.4 volts = 8.8 total volts.

The bulbs do have a resistor already mounted to them. I just ignored them. LEDs are uni-directional. Electricity will only flow through them in one direction. I just made sure that they were mounted in series. Therefore the wire connected to the resistor on one light, goes to the wire without the resistor on the next light. If the lights do not work when you connect them to the battery, reverse the wires at the battery. If an individual light doesn't work, reverse the wires to that light. This is fun. 

Just out of curiosity I tried three 3.4 bulbs = 10.2 volts. It shouldn't have worked. But it did. That's good. I can use that.

While trying to make holes in the rear deck for the new lights, I discovered it was going to be a more radical surgery than originally thought. The holes had to be much larger and I have to remake longer tail light housings. Worst of all, my Bondo was destroyed.

Now comes the time in most of my builds where everything comes to a grinding halt. Puttying. After realizing what needed to be done, I made a jig to hold the tubing in place so I could Bondo around it. Then I put a light coat of petroleum jelly (Vaseline) on the tube, placed it in position, and Bondoed around it. Gratefully the tube pulled out with no problems, when the Bondo was dry. Unfortunately I needed to do some touch up putty work. I am on my fourth try.

When my wife saw the tubing in the fixture when the Bondo was drying she asked, "Why did you make the hole so big, if you're just going to fill it in again?"

While the body primer was drying I moved on to the interior. I wanted to try something new for me. I used self sticking medical tape to add some texture to the interior. 

The pix shows just one coat of paint. No clear. It was done in a cardboard box in a chilly basement. It's about 20 F outside.

After finishing the paint, I started working on the lights. I made new longer tail light housings. I then inserted a red LED into each one. Next I painted the backs of the tail light LEDs and most of the head light LEDs, with silver enamel paint, to prevent unwanted light scatter.

Next is a pix of the first complete lighting system test. Surprisingly, it was successful. I just have to figure out how to cram it all into the body shell. There are twelve lights in total. I used four parallel sets of three lights in series. I'm sure the secret of these LEDs working so good for modeling is those little resistors. Get some x-mas lights while you can. They will eliminate a lot of problems and headaches.