How To: Illuminate Carbon Door Sills

[KfabR8]

--- intro comment brought from another thread ---

I made mention in another thread that I'd stepped away from this little project. Tonight, the desire bit me again and I decided to dive a little deeper into something.

I have to give Rich at OEM credit for this idea too.

When I purchased my 09 from Rich, we did a few mods. One of the things I wanted was carbon door sills. Then I saw the lighted sills and Rich and I had a couple of conversations about which direction to go. The carbon sills won out as there was quite a bit of wiring required for the lighted sills and as I recall the lighted sills were more expensive than the carbon units - don't hold me to that, though.

Anyhow, Rich threw out the idea of hybridizing a lighted sill with a carbon sill. It was more money than I wanted to spend.

The idea never left my pea brain, though.

On Dec 28 of 2010 I walked into my favorite Audi dealership, sat down with a friend of mine, who happens to be a salesman and ordered this beautiful Samoa Orange V8. - this one has that soul that the 09 did not! As I went through the options, checking this and that I saw "Lighted sills" - CHECK! - and somewhere in a dark recess of my gray matter I hear "you have carbon sills in the 09".

When I picked up the car last week, one of the things I had to do right off the bat was check out how the lighted sills work.

I popped it off and took a knife to the sealing compound and started inspecting. I peeled up a couple of layers of plastic and such and then got scared about damaging it. I left well enough alone.

Tonight I went ahead and took a chance on destroying two sets of door sills. Fortunately for me, these past two weeks have been fantastic and tonight just added to the fun I've been having.

So, onto the project!

Here we have the two victims. Top one is the plastic bodied, illuminated sill. Bottom one is a regular carbon fiber sill. (interesting note re: the c/f sills. They are fully carbon, not carbon covered pieces like some of the parts in our cars)



I started out by removing the aluminum plate off of the c/f sill (using my favorite MaCarbon tools again). It takes a while and you have to work down both sides at the same time. The end is very easy to bend up and deform a tad, so be careful. A heat gun to the back side (c/f can take a lot more heat than the adhesive and your hands - but don't over do it) will help release the adhesive.



Here you can see the back side of the insert is completely covered in some industrial grade double sided sticky tape.



I set the c/f sill off to the side and started looking into the lighted sill's make up.

Here's the back side of the lighted sill. The silver plate is the illuminating works.



Start out by trimming away the sealing agent from the edges of the illumination station (catchy name, eh?)



Once you do that, work a blade between the white outer housing and the white semi-opaque plastic sheet/layer - if you're really careful, you might be able to get under the white plastic sheet and avoid having the illumination station end up in more than necessary pieces. I hopefully can pull this off on the next sill.



This is the semi-opaque layer that I think can be left attached to the rest of the illumination station. It's flexible and if you use long strokes while cutting (think filleting a fish) and a very sharp knife, it peels up pretty easily.



Here's the inside of the system. The bottom strip is the illumination station and you can see the R8 logo and the loop that run around the strip. They're plexiglass backing that fits up into the strip.



Next I went after the strip on the plastic sill. Once again, the heat gun helps tremendously - but be careful with the plastic, as it melts fairly easily. I found that by getting the ends free first, I could squeeze the sides of the sill and release the adhesive under the edges fairly easily. Once again, long fillet style strokes with the knife, not little tickles.



The strip removed from the sill:



Back side of the strip - notice the adhesive (black stuff). That all has to be removed to make sure the strip mounts flush against it's new home. Not a fun job...



To transfer the hole that needs to be cut out into the carbon, I took a strip of tape, cut it to fit in the recess for the strip then cut the hole open:





Take my mask and transfer it to the c/f sill:



Out with the high speed air tools and away I go cutting an expensive piece.



The almost finished product - there was some trim work required to make the illuminated plate fit correctly:



Removal of the adhesive as mentioned above. Did I mention this was not fun? Sticky things everywhere...



Follow the instructions and this stuff works well! (or not follow them like I did and do it twice...)



Bad pic of the newly stuck down insert:



Test fitting the semi-opaque plastic sheet (that I hope to keep with everything on the next one).



This stuff is great. For that matter, show me a 3M product that doesn't work well...



I used the double sided sticky tape to adhere the semi-opaque plastic sheet in place. The plastic on the insert sticks through the c/f sill a hair, so the thickness of the tape takes up the gap between the sheet and the c/f sill perfectly. I put the stuff where I saw witness marks.



Align and press in place:



Next I used the weather strip adhesive to put the illumination station back onto the semi-opaque plastic strip. (following the instructions this time.)



Time to seal the system. I like using this stuff, but do NOT get it on you. If you think anti-seize or CV grease is nasty, think of those two combined AND sticky.



I ran a bead around the illumination station and then put on a rubber glove and wiped the bead in place with my finger. This seals everything like it was on the plastic sill.



Test fit - you can sort of see the illumination happening:



Good illumination, bad c/f definition:



A better shot:



Overall I'm just tickled to death with the way these came out. I have to say I was a tad bummed when I found out that you guys in Europe can order illuminated c/f sills, but what ever - it was after I'd ordered the car anyhow.

Now I have the sills that I've been wanting for a while.

(for the right price, I'm willing to do this for people on this board - but you'll have to supply both sets of sills.)

[NASA R8]

Kfab, Great step by step plus pictures and a few product placement hints. Thanks.

[NVRL8R8]

Dude, you frickin rock man! I knew you were up to this from past posts, but what a great job man! Wish I had the balls to attempt this. Is it possible for us to order the European part finished here in the States?

[soho]

Take it down a notch.




You're making us look bad.

[CALBenzo]

Just awesome!! Gutsy cutting into $3K CF sills! Turned out great.

What I was considering was taking apart my lighted sills, and then having someone CF the sill. I wasn't sure whether I was willing to cut into the caulking on the underside of the sill that surrounds the illumination component. Now, seeing your work, I know that it can be done.

[freshmeat]

I waaaaaaant, but don't dare to....

[M3R8]

Great job! Perfect result

Now you'll make a small business out of it.

Anyone know the price of illuminated CF sills here in Europe?

[mark25]

Thats amazing. You did a way better job getting the aluminium R8 part of the side step than I did when I attempted to wrap my door sills. Ended up wrecking them so ordered some CF ones instead. Did you manage to get the aluminium strip to be as flat as it was originally? Hard to tell from the pick but looks amazing!!

[homewood]

Fricking sick !!! Blown away with your creativity, technical skill AND ability to easily explain it step by step. We all bow down in your presence.

[sundowner]

AWESOME!!! Somehow I just knew that you were determined to make this work. But, after seeing what it takes the $2,7870.30 (delivered) quote from Europrice is not looking so bad.