Since I was the OP, I figure I need to let y'all know the outcome from my original post. I've attached 3 pics to help with my explanation.
The first, 'Original Roof' shows the back of the observation car with the factory lenses. My question was should I cut off the large part of the lens sticking out before adding LED lighting. After a lot of discussion, I proceeded with drilling holes in the lenses to insert 3 mm LEDs. Since my drilling of tiny holes was significantly impacted by my large banana fingers, that was a failure. I bought another observation roof on the bay with similar lenses, and painted it so it looked pretty good.
Looking at all the posts, I thought about simply gluing the leds from a light strip to the lenses, and connecting that small strip to the end of the long LED strip on the ceiling. I first glued the LEDs to the unaltered lenses. I think there were 9 LEDs in that strip to get around all the big lenses. The resulting light output wasn't that good. I even glued 2 LEDs , one to the front and one to the back, of the large lenses. I still didn't think it was good. Sorry, no pics of that effort.
I then cut off the large end part of the red lenses, making a flat surface, and glued one led to each lens. I used a small strip of 6 LEDs for this, and you can see it in the 'Modified Lenses with Lights' picture. I was originally going to put liquid tape over the extra lights, but I thought the end of the observation car could use the extra light.
The 'End Result' picture shows what it looks like. The lenses are very bright IMO. I also replaced the factory installed GOW bulb for the drumhead with a 5 mm warm white LED.
My work will not win any accolades from the electrical techs out there, but it works okay
Update: I didn't have the pic of the original roof, so I just copied it and then reposted it. The image is pretty small. If you want to see it bigger, look at the first post in this thread.
