Dave repairs a snapped headlight mount. Many photos.

[dave21478]

Snapping a headlight mounting lug is a bit of a disaster...it leaves the light flopping about not supported properly and will likely screw up the headlights aim. 

I have seen allsorts of repairs in the past, usually involving a massive blob of Araldite and some cableties, but its rarely that strong and just leaning your beer gut against it while fiddling in the engine bay will likely burst it again.

 

Ah piss....

There is supposed to be a split plastic bush on the end of the ball that clips into a round hole in the headlight. You can just see the good one on the top left. After half an hours rummaging on the floor I eventually found the broken bit to rescue the plastic bush.

 

Measuring up the hardware for replacement....

As a side note, a set of sliding calipers like those are a handy thing for a shiter to have. No need to spend big dollah on a fancy set of Mitutoyos from Japan, these are cheapos from the DIY shop for under a tenner and are accurate to 0.02mm I think, which is more than good enough for DIY use.

 

A couple of wee dabs with the MIG to stick the washers to the bracket.

 

Bore it out to 12mm.

 

Remove the excess length from the top of the "L"

the astute observer will spot the mkI version in the background - I fucked up the measurements and made it far too thick.

 

Buff it smooth and trial-fit the bush. The wee tabs have to spring out once its pushed through...thats what holds the light in place.

 

A quick buzz with the grinder to get rid of the old plastic bits.

 

Drill some holes.

 

Put the bracket on the bottom of the mounting leg and use pop rivits to hold it.

 

Fit the bush to the ball and clip the headlight back in place.

 

Finished.

 

[Stanky]

Nice work there, had it been me, I'd have bought a new light (which would have been worse in every way than the one I was taking out) or have just left it to flop about everywhere and blinded everyone like a twat.

 

Impressive work.

[Tickman]

Genius simplicity.

[UltraWomble]

Its things like this that made Britain Great.

[Parky]

The thing I like about your "bodges" is they frequently display greater engineering integrity and longevity than the original spec parts.

 

I probably would have tried a combination of Araldite and plastic welding using a soldering iron, shortly before a trip to A&E for noxious fumes inhalation and a trip back home to a ruined soldering iron. And a still broken headlight..

[Squire_Dawson]

Very neat ingenious repair.

[spartacus]

Nice one, extra points for getting 'Buff it smooth' in there, which made me snigger.

[Honey Badger]

Qwalateee repair job there Dave, thanks for posting it.

 

If you don't have a MIG you could use a metal adhesive to bond the washer into the bracket before following the rest of the post.

[overrun]

Nice work, mate.

 

(If I had gotten that far) I would probably have put too much pressure on the drill and snapped the rest of the tab off, no doubt resulting in a huge hole in the headlight, and said massive gob of Araldite, after all.

[Asimo]

I like repairs like this, and repair stories.

 

But I do feel stupidly nostalgic for 7" round, glass headlights (Lucas) and those rusty black bowls they lived in. Interchangeable between cars, between models and between makes. One part fitted half the cars on British roads in about 1968.

[mercrocker]

Aye, HB Viva and Mk1 Escort - that's when the rot started.....

 

Nice work there Davesequence.   If that was me I would be guaranteed to have a cracked lens on it this time next week....

[robinmasters]

Its things like this that made Britain Great.

And like all great British achievements, the person responsible has fucked off abroad.

 

I was thinking earlier today, there's a lot of criticism on here of 'giffer hodges', which I think can be broadly defined as anything aside from replacing the broken part. Surely we should be applauding this ingenuity? (Granted it's not all to this standard, it's normally a self-tapper holding on some trim, but the ethos is the same)

[LC Torana]

I like repairs like this, and repair stories.

 

But I do feel stupidly nostalgic for 7" round, glass headlights (Lucas) and those rusty black bowls they lived in. Interchangeable between cars, between models and between makes. One part fitted half the cars on British roads in about 1968.

 

And the 5¾" round fitted the other half.

[LC Torana]

Really like that repair, as it only modifies the headlight and keeps the actual car standard, so a new replacement can clip straight in.  Well thought through and executed.

[fraybentos]

P D G

[MikeR]

makes my big blob of sticks like shit on my headlight braket look ......... shit