Front indicator bulb holder

T

typonaut

Member
Front indicator stopped working, so went to put a new bulb in, but could not get old one out. Removed complete light fitting, to discover that the bulb holder had almost completely rusted away.

I did not really inspect the whole thing, but I am guessing that the bulb holder is supposed to be permanently fixed to the chrome light fitting. Is there a repair kit for this sort of thing?
 
I found a front lamp unit on eBay and the vendor has just offered me a reduction. I’m no good at attaching links so I suggest you go on eBay yourself. Maybe contact the seller and see what kind of deal you can get?
 
Horselogger said:
I found a front lamp unit on eBay and the vendor has just offered me a reduction. I’m no good at attaching links so I suggest you go on eBay yourself. Maybe contact the seller and see what kind of deal you can get?
Click to expand...

I'm one of those people that likes to fix things if I can, rather than replace them, so I am trying to work out how to fix it, and off the eBay if I fail…
 
Right, well, no real progress. I ordered the Wadhams kit, but unless I have it competely wrong, it seems to require that you cut off the "bumps"/recesses on the back of the chrome housing, in order to fit the stainless plate (I thought it was a gasket in the photos) that would now hold the bulbs. I am not really prepared to do that, so going to send the kit back.

Perhaps there are differences between series I and II side lights?

Next is to try the Holdens bulb holder, which seems to be a direct replacement for what is currently there (after the old fitting is extracted with a Dremel).
 
Just to conclude: I bought the Wadhams kit, but sent it back, because it seems to require that you remove much of the back of the light fitting.

So, I bought one of the Holdens replacement bulb holders.

This turned out to be a bit of a job because the chrome light fitting had corrosion issues - I have seen zinc alloy mouldings disintergrate in the past, but not automotive applications. Anyway, some holes in the chrome plating seems to result in holes in the zinc moulding - a couple fairly significant at around 10mm across.

I soldered the holes up and painted the non-visible areas with a silver paint - which I kind of hope will keep off the corrision issues in the future (visible chrome is all very good!?).

The other major issue is removing the old light fitting. Although this had disintegrated through corrosion, the bit attaching it to the chrome moulding had not. I managed to lever off some of the metal light fitting from the inside (light side) and then was able to push out the remainder. The pressed-in light fitting also holds an aluminium reflector (for the turn indicator) on the light side and an earthing ring on the back.

The replacement light fitting requires pressing/swaging-in. So, after putting in place the earthing ring and the reflector I expanded/swaged the light fitting with a large steel washer and a pair of vice grips. This worked fine, and provides an earth to the moulding, so the earth ring is not strictly necessary. The only problem I found was that I could not get the swaging really tight, so the light fitting turns if the bulb is twisted. Next time I take it off I'll probably solder the light fitting to the chrome moulding to prevent this happening.

For those wondering about solder repairs to holes in components, this is a fairly well established method of fixing small(ish) holes. I am not sure about UK cars, but cars in built in the USA, well into the late 1960s, often had lead filler in panel joints they wanted to conceal. I once found a door with a great big lump of lead in it as damage repair.

Lead is, of course, banned in these sort of uses today.
 
"Lead is, of course, banned in these sort of uses today."

Actually, it isn’t banned. Though that is only because lead as body filler had become throughly obsolete long before the world started banning lead, being replaced by the plastic body fillers that require no skill and less tools to use. As a result the use as a body filler never caught the eye of regulators.

Yours
Vern
 
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