brando12343

hey all

So a few days ago i started hearing a knocking sound from my trunk area on my 09 g37xs, took a look and it turns out my stock tag light bracket had completely rotten away, im in canada so a replacement would’ve taken weeks to get here and shipping was way too expensive ,so instead of waiting i decided to fire up sketch up and attempt to 3d print my own

my first issue was that the bracket was way too big to print completely on my printer, so i measured what was left of my rotten stock part and split it in half, this worked and the part now fit on my print bed

the second issue was that trying to print the bracket that attaches to the bumper would’ve been a massive pain requiring a bunch of support material, so instead i simply cut off the two brackets on the sides of my stock part since they were still in decent shape and attached them to the part i printed by drilling 2 holes in each and attaching them with some small screws(i actually had them attached backwards by accident in the photo attached, whoops)

the third issue was that since my stock part was so rotten i had to really estimate my measurements so the finished printed parts required a lot of “massaging”, it was a measure once cut thrice sort of deal, i didn’t care though i wanted it to be functional not pretty since it will never be seen anyways, also had to cut out alot of material so the lights would properly clip in, probably could’ve redesigned it and printed again but at this point i was 15 hours into this project, my patience was running pretty short and my beer supply was dwindling so i just cut it out manually

after the “massaging” was complete i simply put a bunch of jb weld into the coupler and put the two parts together, let the jb weld set then used some enamel black paint on the whole thing to make sure the stock parts i salvaged didn’t continue to rust and the 3d printed part didn’t absorb a bunch of water (it was printed with pla which is known to be hydroscopic)

once the paint was dry it was time to put it on the car, once i got to the car at this point i realized i had put the stock brackets on the wrong sides (derp) but i just had to swap em around and it was good to go, it fit surprisingly well and does the job i intended it to do, plus it’ll never rot out like the stock one, i honestly don’t know why nissan decided to use a metal bracket in a super rust prone area instead of just using plastic in the first place but typical nissan things

attached is a photo of the completed project, note again that the brackets are on the wrong way

if anyone wants the files i made i can also post a link to them, can also give someone a little more skilled then me the sketchup files if they want to attempt to make a better model then i did, note though that this is a work in progress, the known issues so far are

-part dimensions are off, measured about 13mm too long( 6.5mm each side) also had to do some massaging so the coupler would fit and so the lights would clip in

- the cutouts for the lights aren’t 100% straight, not sure why but i couldn’t get sketchup to make a straight cut out in the part, again i’m an absolute noob at cad so i’m sure someone more experienced then me could easily fix this


Hope you guys liked this diy, if anyone wants the files be sure to let me know and i will post a link