Headlamps

The headlamps, due to their early 70's design are never going to be brilliant. However a common problem with these is dirt on the inside and rust/pitting to the reflector.

I did some research on the Internet and the general opinion seemed to be that if the headlamp reflectors are no longer reflecting the light well, then only a new reflector can fix it.... no repair works.

So, as my luck has it, my headlamps were pitted :(

The o/s reflector actually wasnt that bad - minor pitting but still reflected the light well:



The n/s one was much worse:



So, I found some foil tape which is 100% foil and is self-adheisive. A lot of foil tape often has a paper element to it which is no good.

I used this tape to cover the badly browned areas of the reflectors. Mainly the top and bottom of the lights on both sides and a few areas on the n/s. OK, its not going to be as good as new but a test has revealed it is better. Once the car is returned to the road and I can test it long-term I may consider fully coating the reflector in this tape:





I also gave the clips that hold the glass lense on and the black bulb covers a coating of rust-remedy primer and a top coat of satin black to bring them back to new:





Once, the lenses had a good clean, everything was clipped back together:





Real use of the headlamps will proove whether my reflector repairs are good or not. Time will tell!

In the meantime, I will keep on checking my sources for some "as new" reflectors.