dolly and R-12 headlights

[Guest]

Since my car is down off of its dolly, I guess I might as well try to sell it (the dolly, not the car ;-). I am kind of ambivelent about letting it go, but if someone is about to start a GT40 build and wants one, drop me a line. I'll let it go for what I paid for it: $300. It is made of 2" square steel tube and has 5" steel wheels with urethane tires (not pnuematic). Front set of wheels caster. I am around 5'9" and it put the side sill at belt level. Short of a rotiserie, it's the best way to go and I would have been lost with out it.

I also have a set of Renault R-12 headlights that include the headlight assemblies, steel frame, plastic back buckets and the receptical to plug into the H4 bulbs that they use. I am told that these Cibie' headlights for the R-12 are identical to the Marchals used in the original GT40s (Cibie' bought out Marchal.) They are from France so they have the proper low beam dip. I also checked out the embossed codes on the lenses.* It would be a tremedous amount of work to modify my present headlight mounts to use these headlights, so if you need a set, let me know. I paid $120 for the set of used lights from France.

* I put the front clip on my car and checked the headlight aim tonight and drove it around the neighborhood to check out the lights at night. The dip on these English lights is very noticably up and to the left despite the fact that some vendors will tell you "we have been sending them to the states for 10 years with no problems" and despite how low they are set. (I thought that since they were so low to the ground that glare wouldn't be a problem for oncoming traffic.) I have put projector beams in the top of the nostrils and will use these as low beams in traffic.

 

[Neal]

You've got mail...

 

[40 Bud]

Lynn, some of the light housings are made so that you can place an existing notch on the bulb holder into one of two corresponding notches in the headlight housing to give a left or right bias to the headlights. My Valeo's are that way.

 

[Guest]

Bud, you are absolutely correct on that. If the housings are capable of this, there should be an embossed indicator of this that is a double headed arrow: <--> I really wish that ones I have were like that, but unfortunately they are not; they only have as single arrow that points the wrong way. Mine also take the P45t bulbs which are very common in Europe and not uncommon over here; EXCEPT, they are only common in the motorcycle, ATV, snowmobile world in the US.

I would really like to use the R-12 lenses because, in addition to having the proper dip, the lenses are very concave which looks kind of cool. To avoid having to redesign my mounting brackets, I had considered figuring out how to soften the glazing that holds the lens onto back, reflector part of the housing so that I could just switch lenses because the bases of the lenses appear to be identically dimensioned. Only trying would tell for sure, but then I realized that the R-12 lenses wouldn't even reach the opening in the body that my lenses extend ~3/8" through. The problem is that the shoulder of the lens on my existing lights is nearly 2" wide; whereas, the R-12 lens shoulder, at its widest (the outer edges), is less than an inch and is only about 3/8", at most, in the center. So however I do it, to use the R-12 lights means redesigning the brackets. I am not sure at this point if it is worth it.