OTHER: The Honda Dealer sign restauration, pt. 1

A few days ago i picked up this Nice old Honda dealer sign without any big plans. I thought to give it a quick wash and hang it somewhere nice on the wall. As usual, the project quickly escalated in a full “restauration”.
First i thought i’d take out the Plastic signage covers from the frame, to see the inside, just because i wanted to know how the frame was intended to be attached to the wall, and because i was curious how such a sign generally is constructed.

Well, turns out the sign once was lit up inside with not less than 5 FL tubes, despite the fact that the seller said it never had lights :-). Free lighting i guess. Aditionally, it seems the lighting was once broken and one previous owner made a funky H4 Halogen (Car) lamp backyard-engineering retrofit 🙂

This is how it all looks disassembled. An aluminum frame with the Lighting installed and the two Honda sign plastic covers.

The reason for t his “retrofit” was quickly found: The FL tubes are completely beyond usage and the brackets for the tubes are so brittle, they fell immediately apart when i touched them:

The frame was quite dirty. OK for me but i still thought i’d give it a little cleanup:

And i’m pretty happy with the result. It took me an hour or so to clean the frame and the rest, but it looks much cleaner. It has still has some visible wear and patina, but that makes it just more authentic. but it’s clean now 🙂

Same with the plastic honda sign covers:

And the inside as well: Before:

And after:

Two corners most probably once got a hit, so they had a light crack. To prevent them from further cracking, i decided to put some industrial grade plastic glue on the inside:

And this is how things look by now:

I decided to give it a full LED retrofit on the inside, which means i will kick out the FL-tube starters, the inverters (maybe they’re broken anyway) and the tubes them self – Including the funky H4 bulb installation.
I will also replace all brackets and wiring because it’s old and since i can do that better myself easily. It’s a quick job when everything fits, so finger crossed. Knowing my luck it will require some engineering skills.
Material has been ordered, and hopefully you’ll see Part two of this restauration here soon. Hopefully with a complete, lit up and nice sign at the end. Then i only need a good place to hang it and wire it up…