I happened to remember to pull my truck in after work today, so I took a look and was pleasantly surprised by how simply the housings attach to the body. Two bolts on top, two snap fittings towards the bottom, and she pops right out!
Which leads to my next train of thought: I remember running across a tutorial on building a CB antennae mount that bolted in to the same points as the upper housing bolts, but the process involved replacing the plastic nut inserts with their metal counterparts for a grounding plane. Now while this leads toward a potential side use for the beefier housings (read: built in antennae mount), I'm fore-mostly interested in a more rigid mounting system for the housings. What that leaves is figuring out how to mount (or weld in) a nut insert to secure the lower half. Seeing as the housings and light placement can be somewhat free form, my idea would be to simply bolt them in at the four points mentioned (after modification), with easy access to the hardware in case of the need to remove them. Theft wouldn't be a problem either, because the top bolts are still covered by the lift gate when it's closed, and I will assume that if it's up,
you're probably near your vehicle. Should anyone
still be concerned about theft, there's always the option to use less common bolt heads, ie: torx, hex, e-torx, etc. Not mentioning that those might look, dare I say, "prettier" than your average grade 8 hardware...
So, anybody think I'm totally crazy
and asking for to much trouble, or have we stumbled upon the next big first gen craze?
Are there any other ideas that someone wants to throw in the pot? The more I sit here typing and thinking about it, the more this sounds like a legitimate fabrication idea that I promise is
probably not a waste of time...