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Decklid brakelight bulbholder repair/restoration
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Kommercial
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thread dredge. Has anyone found a source for the screw terminal barrel connectors that you can rivet to the board? Does anyone know what they are called? Was going to try and fix a friends 58 only holder.

Last edited by Kommercial on Mon Jan 21, 2013 8:08 am; edited 1 time in total
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zozo
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 6:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe recycle what you need from an old screw terminal parking lamp?
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D-train
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 12:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

try ricardo at split parts unlimited.
sent him this, that i bought from the samba.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

and he turned it into this.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

no complaints from me thats for sure..
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 6:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

D-train wrote:
try ricardo at split parts unlimited.
sent him this, that i bought from the samba.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

and he turned it into this.
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

no complaints from me thats for sure..


Does anyone know what sort of laquer is used to produce that brown colour on the back of the brakelights?

I've just got the reflector from mine back from being replated (crap job, but the reflector was crap to start with) and I want to laquer the back before refitting the bulb holders.
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kalymnos Premium Member
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 6:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi

Its called zapon or cellulose lacquer/varnish
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 1:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

kalymnos wrote:
Hi

Its called zapon or cellulose lacquer/varnish


Thanks. I've been Googling for Zapon and all the hits come back with clear laquer. Do you know anywhere that sells the brown?

I recognised the product name though. Swiss watch manufacturers used to use it to protect stainless steel watch cases during shipping, although that was usually purple or blue.
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 2:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In school (looong time ago) we used a varnish as a resist for acid etching and called it Zapon, it was brown.
Google taught me today you take "asphalt varnish" for these purposes.
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mr white
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 2:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Good thread. Good idea about the relay bits for the base. I have a few of these that need re-done. Where is a source for the rivets that attach the lic light bulb holder...Ace??
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 6:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

D-train wrote:

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.



I some got phenolic board from ebay a while back and finally got round to making new terminals for my brake light over the weekend (it's the type shown above).

I'm now stumped as to how to reattach the boards to the reflector and to the 'cage' for the number plate light.

I had to resort to pop/blind rivets to reattach a brass contact to the back of the reflector, but I don't think there is enough room to get the head of the pop/blind-rivet tool in, without risking snapping the terminals off the board.

I managed to salvage the original soft-metal rivets when I disassembled it, but have had no luck re-compressing them to peen the end (I slipped and snapped a board when I tried that as a test).

Short of glueing the board to the reflector and cage and gluing putting the rivets in for looks, I'm stumped.

I'm not averse to using glue (I had to use JB- Weld to rebuild the terminals), just want to be sure that I'm not missing a more obvious and better solution? I'll post pics of the terminals tonight.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Andy
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 12:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is what I started with...

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


The brake light terminal was missing altogether and a PO had soldered a wire directly to the base terminal of the bulb. The wire to the number (licence) plate bulb had snapped in the terminal, so a wire had been soldered to the terminal. The phenolic board was also split and broken.

This was the 'reflector', after removing the remains of the terminals...

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


It had been painted with white paint at some point and that paint had turned green over time. There was some evidence of chrome underneath, but all in all it was in pretty bad shape.

I removed the number/licence plate bulb 'cage' and took the reflector to a local plating shop for re-chroming. I wouldn't bother again. The reflector was so badly pitted, and the chroming shop didn't exactly excel themselves, so it came out quite dull...

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


If I was doing this again, I'd just strip the old paint, treat the rust and spray it with metallic silver paint.

More in the next post...
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

After getting the reflector back from the platers, I experimented with coatings on the reverse, to try and get it close to the original brown.

Mine had traces of the original coating and it looked like this example that Everett posted in another thread in the FAQs...
Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


In the end, I went with Shellac, or more precisely, knotting fluid Laughing

The flash on my phone makes it look very gold, and it's more glossy than the original, but in daylight it's not a bad match...

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


...and the stuff wipes off easily with Methylated Spirits if I find anything better in the future.

Then, this weekend I had a go at fabricating a new brake light bulb terminal and repairing the number/licence plate bulb terminal. I'd bought phenolic board on ebay and I cut replacement boards with a dremmel.

When I took brake light apart terminals off, I did so by squeezing the peened/squeezed ends of the soft metal (aluminium?) rivets until I could pull them back out of their holes, as I'd intended to re-use them. As noted above however, that was probably a waste of time, as I can't find a tool that will fit around the reflector to squish them tight again. Sad

The brass terminals weren't so easy to 'un-peen', so I had to cut the retaining washers off and use them as c-clips when rebuilding.

For the missing terminal, I used an old motorbike headlamp bulb holder. It had three terminals and I ruined two in failed experiments.

Eventually, I settled on drilling over-sized holes for the terminal bases and using the cut washers as c-clips as well as gluing them with JB-Weld...

Licence plate terminal...

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Brake light terminal...

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


With the brake light terminal; the original brass strip had a projection that lipped over a notch in the phenolic board. The post is also notched at its base and the brass strip has a rectangular cut out that takes the notched post. I think these features were designed to stop the terminal spinning when the terminal screw was tightened.

The salvaged headlight terminal brass strip didn't have the projection to lip over the phenolic board. It's post was also too long to grip the phenolic board, so I made a spacer out of brass strip, cut a groove in it and inserted it so it funtions like the projection and grips the notch in the phenolic board. Hopefully that will stop it spinning.

So, I've got this far...

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


...and I'm stuck for ideas on how to re-attach the phenolic board.
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easy e
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 2:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I put some tail light housings from an early '58 bus in the oven after laying some fresh lacquer on them. I was just going to let the pilot light help out. I depart to garage.

My better half decided to use the oven and commenced to preheat.

Suggestion one: Advise your better half you sometimes have car parts in the oven, fridge, freezer, cupboard, sink, bowls and dining table. This should be expected and is normal.

During preheating, I found out lacquer takes on a more brown appearance... veeeery much like the finish you are looking for.

Suggestion 2: Take a piece of clean or shiny steel, lacquer it, put it in the oven at 400, check on it every few mins. Determine acceptability for use as a treatment for your brake light housings.

e
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 1:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Apologies if this appears twice, I'm sure I clicked submit.

Anyhow, finished it. I took a chance with pop-rivets and managed to get it together without breaking anything...

Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Image may have been reduced in size. Click image to view fullscreen.


Edit:- updated 10/10/17 to fix broken photobucket link
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