Thread: Adding reverse lights on a 34 Ford sedan?

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How to ..... ?

you will need to provide more info than "How to" is the ford STOCK is it a hot rod street rod automatic stick column or floor shift. "Simple" mount 2 lights under rear bumper and put a switch on the dash

Unless they are required in your state for inspection or driving, they aren't even needed. All of the older cars back from the 30's to the late 50's didn't have back-up lights and as a "grandfather" law are not required when making one of those year cars into a street rod.

Would look like tits on a fish, in my opinion

In a asthetic situation like that you could get creative and hide them inside of the existing rear lenses........they might have a red tint to them due to the back lenses ,but would still keep the familiar pleasing look to the rear of your ride.

There are several ways to actually make the lights come on and off automatically depending on what you have ,most use some sort of switch actuated by the shifting mechanism when it is in reverse.


Describe more of what you have in the car as far as auto or stick ,on the column or the floor ...etc, and I am sure someone here can get you the information you need to make this work for you.

It`s always fun coming up with fixes and mods like this where none existed before........

By the way ,I am with you ,I have had the reverse lights go out on a few rides....they are a very nice thing to have in the dark ,especially if you do not want to bend/smash or break things ....

Good luck gettin it worked out !

I'm putting in back-up lights on the wifes 36 chevy so I know what you are going to need to do. My wife almost backed my 34 ford into a post one night because she couldn't see what she was going to "hit". After my panic attack, it was pretty funny.

Anyway, Lets just say your 34 has an after market Lokar or Genie shifter. You may already have the "reverse" switch on your gear shifter and may not be hooked up to anything. If you don't, then you can either add that capability or you will need to get an electronic gear shift indicator that attaches onto your transmission (assuming an automatic). These gear shift indicator set-ups have the capability to send a feed our to provide power to a relay to supply a feed to the back-up lights.

I have these very small quartz Halogen lights all ready to install on the chevy. They will be mounted under the car so that they really can't be seen but have enough angle to illuminate the back area for backing. Like I said in the previous paragraph, I will hook up my lead from the Gearshift reverse indication into my relay which will let me supply the correct amperage to the QH backup lights without hurting the indicator switch.

It's not complicated at all, but it just takes some good planning.

Jerome

Sorry for not giving more information.
Have a rodded '34 Ford, no bumpers, running a B&M Street Shifter with no reverse switch that I can find. That's not an issue as I am not opposed to putting a simple toggle switch under the dash to turn on the lamps.
What I am asking is more on the install side. Where to actually mount the lamps, (single or double) and what types are available. I've looked at a single reverse lamp for an early VW which was designed to mount on a bumper, but seems rather cheap.
Here's a rear view of the '34 (The exhaust tips & AAA sign are no longer there. Changed the exhaust to side mounted Camero SS tips infront of rear wheels).


thanks!

bart

Maybe LED's in the Lic. plate area...? You might be able to make a frame with a string of them under the plate.

Originally Posted by djv8ga

Maybe LED's in the Lic. plate area...? You might be able to make a frame with a string of them under the plate.

Here's what I finally did.. reverse lamp came from a vintage VW website. IMHO looks appropriate... BTW just sold the '34 to a nice gentleman in VA...