1969 Front Parking Lights ...

[stangs-R-me 120]

I sanded / wire-wheeled & painted my originals back in the early 80's and they really could be replaced.   

From the pictures online, the new repro's made by ACP looked pretty close to original so I bought a pair from NPD.   Well, they ended up shipping me a LH made by ACP and a RH made by Muscle Car GT, and the differences are obvious.   Contacted them, and they checked the rest of their inventory and they found all to be ACP, however the LH ones are Gold Zinc and all the RH's are Silver Zinc.   So they gave me a label to ship them back.   

Ordered a pair of Scott Drake from Summit as the picture on Summit's & S-D's sites is the ACP version but what they shipped were the cheaper looking Muscle Car GT.

Main issues with the Muscle Car GT version:   

M4x0.7 threaded inserts instead of the correct 8-32 inserts that the ACP has

OEM style Wire Boot is replaced by a molded rubber bushing at the back of the lamp socket

The stampings of the MCG are also quite different from OEM where the ACP is very close to the OEM stampings

Wire colors are not correct for either version (no winner here) 

Ground connection is also different from OEM on both: MCG is external like OEM but not correct and the ACP ground goes in the boot with the two other wires.

MCG is painted SILVER inside like OEM ... ACP bare Gold Zinc so needs silver paint

MCG has a GRAY gasket (lighter color than OEM) ... ACP has a WHITE gasket that needs to be changed

Both Lens's are generic w/o Ford Logo and neither have the correct style S.S. screws and both come with incorrect CLEAR bulbs

Correct Gaskets, Lens's, Screws, & Bulbs are available so no big deal there

The plating on my original and the N.O.S. one are a very close match ... you can tell by the pics that the Repro's are more gold/yellow.

     

I'm now waiting to hear back from a vendor that has 10 each of the "Mr. Mustang" version in stock (which the picture also matches the ACP), to see what the inventory really is.

I've got a N.O.S. LH one my brother bought back in the 80's it is super special because it has a 2-wire '70 style plug on it instead of the correct '69 3-wire plug (we also have a N.O.S. '70 RH lamp and the bumper bracket is longer and offsets the lamp more than the '69, with a correct 2-wire '70 plug).

I took comparison pics ...

From Left to Right ... NOS ... OEM ... ACP ... MCG

    

[Brian Conway 264]

Restored originals can be had.  Try Anghels Restorations

[stangs-R-me 120]

Brian,

Thanks for posting that, but $500 / pair is a bit rich for me especially since I'm not going for concours correct ... good to know info for someone going concours though.

However, "close" is good enough for me and that is what I feel the ACP made lamps are (provided I can find a matching pair).

My car was an Atlanta DSO car that had Virginia plates on it when I got it in 1981.   It was somebody's beater but still a very clean / rust free car that I'm guessing saw very little if any snow / winter driving.   However, my lamp housings are rusty enough that there is some metal missing so they may be borderline candidates for restoration.

I guess my point is that if mine may not be restorable, there can't be too many lamps out there that are so a set of "Anghels" masterpieces should not be wasted on my car.

In the 1st pic you can see the rusted away / missing metal of the lamp housing ... that edge should be straight across.   A little sanding / wire-wheeling then paint them black (right over the rust !!) was as good as the 19 year old me was willing to do in 1981. 

Doug  

[stangs-R-me 120]

Here are the original lamps from my brother's '69 Convertible he bought in 1985.   It was a low milage all original car (IIRC under 50k miles on ODO) including factory Winter Blue paint but lived those 16 years in the Chicago area ... only things reusable on them are the SS Lens retaining screws !!   

Typical Chicago junk yard car lamps brackets back then were way worse than these examples, some were completely separated with lamps dangling from the wires or brackets were cobbled up with added sheet metal to hold them together.      

[Brian Conway 264]

  My originals were in good shape so I cleaned them up and got some black Rust Oleum on them 2009.  I understand the angst involved with trying to buy some presentable parts.  Anghels restored parts are more than what I have in the budget but sure are nice.  Buying parts is a trying and usually expensive ordeal.  Sometimes it seems like getting a 'correct' part is worth the extra money.  Brian

[WEEKEND CRUISER 18]

I went with ACP as well and had ordered them through NPD. When I got the front parking lights from NPD I had only 1 that was ACP and the other was another brand, even though both left and right was listed as ACP. I bought a set together instead of having to buy separately that was ACP on Ebay and sent the ones I bought from NPD back, the ACP are very close to the originals imo.

[stangs-R-me 120]

1 hour ago, WEEKEND CRUISER said:

I went with ACP as well and had ordered them through NPD. When I got the front parking lights from NPD I had only 1 that was ACP and the other was another brand, even though both left and right was listed as ACP. I bought a set together instead of having to buy separately that was ACP on Ebay and sent the ones I bought from NPD back, the ACP are very close to the originals imo.

Same situation I'm in ... both were supposed to be ACP but instead LH is ACP and RH is Muscle Car GT.   

They must have gotten new ACP RH inventory now and I just got one of the last of the other brand, however all the new ACP RH's they have is stock are Silver Zinc Plated instead of Gold ... so they have a new issue that is not any fault of theirs.

I see the ACP's on Ebay from CarID. 

I'm checking with Stangaholics (ACP) to see if their inventory is in fact Gold Plated and TopFlight (Mr Mustang branded) to see if their inventory is actually private labeled ACP and if they are Gold Plated or not.

Doug

           

[WEEKEND CRUISER 18]

I looked back to see who I bought my parking lights off of from Ebay and they came from Ohio Mustang Supply. And these were gold just like the picture below.

[stangs-R-me 120]

Never heard back from Stangaholics or TopFlight, so I did a bit more digging and found Kentucky Mustang sells the ACP Lamps as a LH&RH Kit and showed 8 in stock, so I ordered a pair.   Also ordered a pair of the Daniel Carpender correct gray gaskets & FoMoCo Lenses and an AMK correct Lens SS Screw set as they had all this in stock too.   

Kentucky Mustang also sells the ACP LH&RH '69-70 Back-Up Lamp's as a complete Kit, so I ordered these as well.   Currently on B.O., so this will ship when available.

Now I just need to send back the mis-matched ACP/MCG pair to NPD and the Scott Drake (Muscle Car GT) pair back to Summit.

Hopefully this will be the end of the saga.

Thanks everyone for the replies & feedback,

Doug       

[stangs-R-me 120]

ACP Lamps came from Kentucky Mustang yesterday.   They are BOTH Silver (or Clear) Zinc Plated so they at least match.   Main benefit to being Silver instead of Yellow/Gold Zinc is I did not need to paint the inner reflector/bezel silver as ACP was NOT doing that on the yellow/gold ones either.   The NOS Lamp I've got from the 80's is more silver than yellow/gold, so I'm fine with the color change ... better than my black painted originals for sure. 

The OEM 8-32 screws were tight going in on these (as they were on the yellow/gold one I got from NPD), so I chased the threads with an 8-32 tap.   Even made little red wire loops like the OEM harnesses had out of some solid 22GA wire I had laying around.   Smaller in OD vs. the OEM so 20 or 18GA wire would be better. 

Saga is finally over !!

Doug

[stangs-R-me 120]

Figured I should share my back-up plan using the MUSCLE CAR GT lamps if I could not find a matched set of ACP lamps ...

I first did a test re-tapping an M4x0.7 nut I had laying around with an 8-32 tap and threads seemed to be strong / not stripped out as I thought might happen.   So, I was going to do this to the MUSCLE CAR GT lamps so I could use the correct O.E.M. screws.

Then bought a 6" piece of Heavy Wall 3/4" 3:1 Shrink Ratio Heat Shrink Tubing and was going to cut in half and try and replicate the way the 80's vintage N.O.S. lamp was done with the heat shrink over the back end of the bulb socket    This tubing is just large enough to slip over the 3-wire plug end.

I don't know what I was going to use on the wire end to get it to seal flat around the wires like OEM, but I at least got this far.

Doug

 

[aslanefe 333]

Just an idea, you can use a terminal crimper like This to crimp the end of heat shrink flat over the wires. 

[stangs-R-me 120]

3 hours ago, aslanefe said:

Just an idea, you can use a terminal crimper like This to crimp the end of heat shrink flat over the wires. 

I was guessing the tool that does this has the heating element built-in, but YES something like that with a heat gun would probably work too.    I wonder if a bag sealer could get warm enough to do it.

Doug

[aslanefe 333]

10 minutes ago, stangs-R-me said:

I was guessing the tool that does this has the heating element built-in, but YES something like that with a heat gun would probably work too.    I wonder if a bag sealer could get warm enough to do it.

Doug

Bag sealer or similar will heat and flatten the insulation over the wires too. You need something that has voids for the wires. Or heat the end of a needle nose pliers and seal around each wire seperately.

[stangs-R-me 120]

Heated needle nose pliers  ... YES.   I even have a micro Craftsman pair that has smooth jaws that I've never found a use for ... well here we go !!

I no longer need to do this as I shipped those lamps back for credit, but great discussion as this can pertain to refurbishing other areas of an automotive wiring harness.

 

I actually bought a length 1-1/8" Heat Shrink when I bought the 3/4" as I was not sure if the 3/4" would go over the 3-wire plug.   As I don't really need to have either laying around now, I really should return them (w/b $10.50 credit @ Menards). 

 

Thanks,

Doug