Headlight madness - please help

[foothilltom 33]

(Didn't get any replies to my last stupid question, so hoping for better luck this time)

 

I'm trying to put the dang headlight assembly back in my donor car and am just going nuts trying to get this right.

 

For starters, is it super-crucial to orient the headlamp a certain way? In other words, so it aligns parallel with the ground? I've got 2 of them in now and when I put them on tonight, the light seemed to be concentrated in a line up and down (if that makes any sense), not from left to right. It was like looking through a cat's eye aligned vertically.

 

Also, the crappy little "cup" the lamp goes in has 3 little tabs that seem to want to accept the tabs on the back of the lamp itself. The problem is the orientation is different on all the "cups" and it's just damn impossible (so it seems) to get the lights to line up correctly. Should they just fit nice and snug in these cups?

 

If someone could explain the big picture to me here, I'd be most grateful:

 

Q: Headlamps need to be oriented "right side up"?

Q: Is there a method to lining up the bulbs in the cups?

Q: Is there a distinction between HIGH/LOW on these cups?

Q: Does anybody else thing this light assembly is awful?

 

Thanks!

Tom

[Thunder Kiss 13]

1. Yes, they must be the right way up.

2. The tabs "should" sit in the grooves correctly. If yours don't then either the cups have been changed or lamps are wrong. You could always cut new grooves into your cups.

3. No, the HIGH/LOW and HIGH lamps should all have their tabs/grooves in the same location.

4. No, but they are a bit fiddly.

[jmlay 80]

My guess is someone removed the cups & they were not put back in the same place they were removed from. All 4 cups are different & will need to be oriented correctly. Some part numbers at least to get you going.:

 

http://www.428cobrajet.org/forum/index.php?topic=9312.0

 

Mike

[Pakrat 1,043]

The high beam cups are the same, the lows are different, each should be marked with a RL (right low) LL (left low) and H (high). The bulbs are easy enough to figure out as the plugs are different to them from the harness. Once you the right cups in the right spot mating the bulbs will be easier. There are adjustment screws for vertical and horizontal.

[foothilltom 33]

Thanks, guys. In hindsight, I made this worse for myself in that I cleaned up and painted cups from 2 cars and didn't even consider they were different. I'll go back through the pile now and match up them up as directed here.

 

As always, I get great info here.

 

Tom

[Pakrat 1,043]

With items like this that is an easy mistake, at a glance they appear to all be the same, at least you learned something new and with the assembly codes this was easy to fix. You would think Ford would have made them all the same knowing their usual MO but I guess this was about the only way to make sure things did not get mixed up on the line.

[bnickel 10,004]

Thanks, guys. In hindsight, I made this worse for myself in that I cleaned up and painted cups from 2 cars and didn't even consider they were different. I'll go back through the pile now and match up them up as directed here.

 

As always, I get great info here.

 

Tom

 

 

i did the same thing but also had the bowls from a 73 galaxie 500, a 70 cougar (not my old car), and 2 69 stang parts cars plus a couple others that came in a parts lot i bought on ebay. i just went through and picked the best ones from the bunch and blasted and painted them without even thinking about them being different, ended up having to blast and paint a couple more on the night before the big car show last year where the car was supposed to debut, the show that it ended up getting mostly rained out and my power steering pump took a dump that morning of, so i didn't make it anyway and could have gotten away with not having to do the other bowls afterall...oh well.