Interested but I would like to see some pictures of the underside etc. I have seen others make low profile lights. Randy Agee did an excellent job using a single Camero type headlight bulb. He cut out the bulb with a hole saw (I think) and (I believe) siliconed in a dual bulb. He then made the bulbs fit the stock headlight assembly by cutting the housing holder area and regluing or welding the pieces back together to make it look like it came from the factory. He did make some metal pieces to make up for the narrower bulb. He even used body filler or something to make the areas where he cut and welded or glued the pieces of the headlight assemble back together to smooth it out to look OEM. When he opened his front hood nothing looked out of place. Looked like it would from the factory. With the front hood open he turned on the headlights. They came up and they looked OEM, just not as tall. I was very impressed by what he did. I have seen others make something like you are making but when you open the front hood it looks very aftermarket, not in anyway a factory look. So I would like to see what the underside looks like. I want something that looks factory. Or at least something that can be worked over to make it look close to factory so if I open my front hood and show someone the front trunk of my 88 Mera it looks good and does not stand out as an aftermarket addition.
So I would like to see what the underside looks like once installed. Others may not care if the installed system does not look OEM or reasonably close to an OEM system. I do.
Once installed it does not have to look Fiero OEM like Randy Agee's does. I would like it to look somewhat like an automaker made it. I want to be able to open my front hood and not have someone look at it and think Ferrari sure designed an odd headlight bucket system. Maybe have them ask me is that an aftermarket headlight system?
Years ago I tried to find any type of aftermarket bulb that was not as tall as the stock Fiero headlight bulb but close to the same width. I looked at all the aftermarket driving lights I could find, motorcycle bulbs, snowmobile bulbs. I never did find anything. If I could find something then I could do what Randy Agee did. Mount it in the stock headlight assembly and cut the height down and reglued or weld the pieces back together.
Rodney Dickman 1988 Mera
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09:16 AM
Oreif Member
Posts: 16460 From: Schaumburg, IL Registered: Jan 2000
Once installed it does not have to look Fiero OEM like Randy Agee's does. I would like it to look somewhat like an automaker made it. I want to be able to open my front hood and not have someone look at it and think Ferrari sure designed an odd headlight bucket system. Maybe have them ask me is that an aftermarket headlight system?
Rodney Dickman 1988 Mera
Rodney I think I know what you mean. You want a more finished look. The thing is in the pics he is just showing the basic setup. If you order the same headlights from Hella that I did they come with a 90* connector for the H9 bulbs. The advantage here is if you want to have a factory finished look, All you need is a plastic or metal curved cover to fit over the rear of the bucket that has the holes cut out for the rear of the lights and it can be made to clip onto the rear of the adjustment screws. Once the wires are sleeved in a corrigated sleeving like the rest of the car, It will look just like the a factory finished bucket. You really won't see the bottom side. With the headlights down you will see a small cover and just the rear of each headlamp with a factory looking harness plugged in and the connectors look like the GM weather-pac style.
I'm not sure if you know what I mean, But once I get mine installed, I do plan of making a cover over the rear and I can take some pics.
Oreif if you make a cover for the rear of the buckets I would be interested in them. Rodney I will take some closer pix of the bottom side when installed for you. Do you need pix from the underside?
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09:58 AM
Rodney Member
Posts: 4715 From: Caledonia, WI USA Registered: Feb 2000
Rodney I will take some closer pix of the bottom side when installed for you. Do you need pix from the underside?
I would like to see what this looks like with the headlights down and the front hood open. Some nice close up pictures. Post them for all of us to see.
Oreif if you make a cover for the rear of the buckets I would be interested in them. Rodney I will take some closer pix of the bottom side when installed for you. Do you need pix from the underside?
As crazy as it may sound, I think I know of a way now to make a very easy and quick (and good looking), cover for the back side of these.
By chance I was looking at, (believe it or not), a black polypropylene WASTE BASKET in my garage and the idea hit me. It's a small office size waste basket, black poly and it looks like it can be cut into a couple of "L" shaped pieces longitudinally using the corners to make some nice simple covers for the back of the lights. The waste basket already has a taper to it (draft), from top to bottom that might match the horizontal angle of the bracket. I think it can be mounted cleanly and neatly with a few "L' shaped aluminum brackets on the inside of the bucket. A clearance hole may need to be cut for the longer light housing. All that would be seen when the lights are up would be 3 trim screws on each side of the housing like below: I'll have to look this over carefully once I get my buckets in a couple of weeks. I'm not going to start drilling small screw holes in the new buckets until I'm absolutely certain this will work.
I know this probably doen't make any sense right now so I'll try to draw a quick sketch of what I'm talking about and post it later.
Randy
------------------ Everyone thinks I'm psychotic, except for my friends deep inside the earth.
Something just occured to me looking at these. You want both lights on when the high beams are on. I will try to figure out something for wiring that way tomorrow, I am going to bed now.
This was already addressed in an earlier thread. At the minimum, it just requires adding a single 15 amp, 50 volt diode to the stock Fiero headlight harness. Alternatively, you could accomplish the same thing with a single SPST relay.
While more complex, the relay solution would avoid drawing significantly more current through the stock Fiero wiring and headlight switch than assumed in the original design.
[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 02-03-2007).]
I was just wondering why did you do them in steel?? instead of aluminum?? just courios I find aluminum much easier to work with and it doesnt rust. I think it needs a trim peice around the sides to fill in to the cured part of the headlight cover. just my 2 cents.
------------------ Glenn Lintemuth A&P Mechanic Colorado Springs, CO 88' Convertible "BeyondGT" 88' GT, white 5speed 89' K-5 Blazer on 44's 04' Silverado Ext Z71 on 33's
Aluminum would have to be at least 3 - 4mm thick to withstand the pressure of the head light lid springs. Steel is stronger and when galvanized just as rust resistant.
I would like to see them not installed sitting on a table specifically without any lamp in them at all.
also from the pics they look like they are simply tack welded together, will the finished items have a full weld up the seams?
They don't look "tack" welded to me. I believe the proper technical term is a "stitch weld"...that would be an intermittent weld, not a full seam. From the heat pattern I see in the photos Timo has posted thus far, you can clearly see that the welds have good penetration and are not "tacks". In short, perfectly fine for this application and structurally sound.
Randy
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07:49 PM
PFF
System Bot
AutoTech Member
Posts: 2385 From: St. Charles, Illinois Registered: Aug 2004
I think they look fine just the way they are. Once painted black it will look better. Besides, usually when you have the lights up its at night, whos going to see the sides?
Great work!.Im just waiting for the rectangulars!
[This message has been edited by AutoTech (edited 02-03-2007).]
They are stitch welded together not just tacked. I'll be picking up all the finished buckets today and will get more pix. From the bottom, close ups with the hood open and not installed.
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12:24 AM
midengineracer Member
Posts: 196 From: Kaiserslautern, GE Registered: Dec 2006
I checked the links provided by McInnis and they are roughly where I was going to go with this. I just finished a ten page philosophical essay and don't really feel like using my brain again for the next day or two. I will research this some more and see if I can come up with a real nice, clean method to maximize the lights. Both of the fixes mentioned will work but I feel they left room for improvement. The diode I personally do not like at all beyond the instantaneous (as far as we are concerned) transfer of power to all 4 lights.
There were some questions about the HID side in some of those threads (I also asked earlier in this thread). Since asking I also saw the price of a bi-xenon HID set up (allows one lamp instead of the two) and the regular low beam HID. Definitely cost prohibitive for me right now...
------------------ 2005 Smart ForTwo 1986 Austin Mini 1986 Fiero GT 5-speed (waiting on a brake upgrade) 2007 Ninja 500
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12:09 PM
Kristian V Member
Posts: 217 From: Göteborg / Sweden Registered: Feb 2006
You dont usualy want a full seam weld on anything exept a tank or other construction that has to be totaly air/liquid tight. A full seam makes a lot of tension on the material close to the weld and it can therefor crack. The stitch welded parts are stronger, not that it matters in this aplication. Exept a full seam would have bent the parts, and a lot of work and time (= your money) would go on getting the part straight again.
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12:10 PM
Flyguyeddy Member
Posts: 568 From: pekin, Il USA Registered: Dec 2003
i see one problem area that may need to be addressed:
where the headlight bucket pushes up on the headlight door you may have to widen the steel or something so that it doesnt cut into it. over time it would suck to have to replace your headlight doors because of this. possibly some sort of roller so that it is nice and smooth? maybe this isnt a problem at all, i have not seen my fiero in some time and there could be bumpers and such already there for this. if so then please diseguard.
The pieces in the bottom right hand corner are for those who want to use their own head light combos. They won't be galvanized because of the problems in welding galvanized steel. The blank buckets will also be $26 (20€) cheaper.
[This message has been edited by Fiero1Fan (edited 02-04-2007).]
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12:54 PM
Flyguyeddy Member
Posts: 568 From: pekin, Il USA Registered: Dec 2003
i see one problem area that may need to be addressed:
where the headlight bucket pushes up on the headlight door you may have to widen the steel or something so that it doesn't cut into it.
That would be a problem but we have a solution for it. The buckets will come with an edge guard for the top where they rub against the lid so that there is no damage to the lid.
Originally posted by Fiero1Fan: That would be a problem but we have a solution for it. The buckets will come with an edge guard for the top where they rub against the lid so that there is no damage to the lid.
Looks to me like youwe thought about every litle detail!
Here is the list that I have up to this point. Those who have already paid will get shipped on the same day I get the buckets back from the Galvanizers.
TorqueWench confirmed Timgray confirmed Fiero STS confirmed FieroWannaBe confirmed tjuren_80 confirmed Marvin McInnis confirmed for later Flyguyeddy confirmed for later Unsafe at any Speed confirmed for later
Fierov8 GregZ R Runner Jason G. Campbell FieroMaster88 Shadowguy 88White3.4GT AutoTech Srat110 Vladd Rodney Leeloo88 PaulJK Cornersonrails Tom Lesuik Htexans1 PontiacJ8 Low_key Kohburn Angel_Valentino
[This message has been edited by Fiero1Fan (edited 02-16-2007).]
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04:21 PM
Intel Member
Posts: 752 From: Helsingborg, Sweden Registered: May 2002
That looks great! A friend of mine just made up a rectangular carbon fiber cover on his miata (same bucket design, same Hellas) that snaps on into the two holes not used to fasten the light modules. I'll try to adapt his mold that is about 20 mm thick and make my own set, not sure if I'm going to use carbon fiber, I don't really like it on a fiero. I think that will make a more finished look and hide the Hella modules a bit. Not to self: Buy fiberglass release agent and gelcoat.
This should be inclueded when you buy a pair of 1BL 008 193-007 Low, a pair of 1KO 008 191-007 High
2 x Low beam (1BL 008 193-00) 2 x High beam (1KO 008 191-00) with parking light. 4 x Adjuster kit with 3 screws (152 977-00) 4 x H7 bulb plug (8KB 863 949-011) 2 x parking light bulb connector (8JD 156 150 807) 4 x rubber cap (152654)
Originally posted by swisscheese: I didn't get the rubber caps. Damn are they important?
Most headlights don't have rubber caps on the back of the lights. It's just a weatherprotection that covers the connector on the bulb. I don't think there's any on the stock Fiero lights.
