Eliminated taillight bezels

[blue missile]

Has anybody here eliminated the taillight bezels on a 73 and up Duster?
If so what did you do about the gasket that shows past the rear panel metal?
Could you please post pics.
Andrew

 

[mopardrt]

do a search on the forums there was a topic about this awhile ago no one on here had done it but there were pics of a car that had done it

 

[blue missile]

I found what I was looking for. Here is the pic of the rear of a duster that had its bezels eliminated. My question was are the gaskets visible, or was extra metal added to dress the opening.
Well the owner Chris just welded in posts to attach the taillight and left the opening the original size. I think I will do the same thing, and since the car is to be painted black the gasket wont stand out as much.
Andrew

 

[blue missile]

Having decided to delete the taillight bezels. Im in the middle of the process, it just got too hot to finish today.
The bolts are called elevator bolts.
The last pic is of the exposed gasket, I have to put a filler plate there, I cant leave it as is.
Andrew

 

[1970Duster]

This kind of reminds of the back end of a Nova

 

[blue missile]

1970,
Since Im going for the clean streamlined look, it follows the theme.
On top of that is eliminates 12 opportunities for leaks into the trunk.
Besides your duster has no bezels on the taillights, giving it a nice clean look.
wait for the "finished" look and comment again
Andrew

 

[hemitheus]

that looks fantastic... i always have hated the tails on the 73+ dusters because of the stupid bezel. I dig it.

 

[blue missile]

Here is the end result. I made pieces of sheet metal to take up the slack and cover the gasket. welded them in and used Metal to Metal and primer over that. I then cleaned up the lenses and sprayed them with a "smoke" spray for lenses. I think it looks nice and clean. I'm also going after a couple of new lenses for them.
Andrew