The fog lifts

[mac]

The fog lifts - or will do soon.

Evening girls,

Spending much time applying e-bay retail therapy, I recently came across a pair of 360 fog lamps which I duly gathered in.
I was expecting the usual "contained somewhere in a lump of mud" and the description accurately reflected the usual "fixing screw seized so edge of casing broken off".
Under the usual crud, and broken casing, and peeling yellow lens colour was a perfect reflector - the other unit, unbroken
was regrettably missing the "O" ring between the casing halves and over time had almost filled with mud! Needless to say the reflector was less than perfect (but surprisingly good considering)

All parts were cleaned and checked, the remainder of the yellow colouring removed, and a single perfect unit assembled.
This left the following to be solved before making up the pair.
Recover the reflector (solvent cleaning and touching up with reflective chrome paint).
Replace the casing "O" ring (big box in the attic).
Repair the main rear casing - I've no idea if the seller is a forum member here but if he is I will apologise for my gentle dig at his description of damage - "nothing a big washer won't solve"!

The damaged casing after cleaning,



A happy half hour with some 20gauge off cuts,



Trial fitting of the repair patch,



Patch treated with anti corrosion,



I'll put it all together tomorrow.

Mac.

[360beast]

Great work Mac

What are you going to do about the O ring? Still need to replace mine. I replaced my reflector and wiring due to it leaking and the reflector being a pile of rust and the wiring falling apart!

[mac]

The main casing "O" ring is a 4.0mm square section closed cell foam seal.
I happened to have a used replacement in "my big box in the attic" but I've ordered some 4.0mm foam sheet which should be a good match.
If it works well I'll make new seals and add the info to this thread.

The other seal is the screw on rear cap - both perfect on the subject lamps and are much thicker.

Mac.

[360beast]

Ahh sorry Mac I thought when you said O ring you meant the big seal for the screw on cap, that's all split and cracked on mine.

Do you know what I could use to replace them? I don't really want to silicone it shut.

[mac]

I'll see what I can come up with.

Mac.

[Ride_on]

Interesting, how effective is the chrome paint? Are the reflectors metal?

[mac]

Update:-

Ride_on - yes the reflectors are metal and whilst the "chrome paint" is nowhere good enough for the main area of a headlamp say, it's perfect for non critical areas of auxiliary lamps.

The paint is used on the lower flat surface,



360beast - would these be what you need?, PM me your snail mail name/address and I'll pop them in the post.



All put back together and we now have a pair of very useable front foglamps!





Shame they're black plastic - me like shiney shiney, he he, gibber, woople (and I really meant that MP)

Mac.

[360beast]

Hi Mac the seals arrived today, thank you so much

Once again you have gone out of your way to help others.

[Ride_on]

So what do you think the metal coating is, chrome, aluminium? Is there a 100% restoration process, ie restore main headlamp reflectors aswell.

Chrome is easy to find companies to do it, but not sure about aluminium.

[mac]

The fog lamp coating seems to be the same as the H/L reflector coating - it certainly looks like a chrome coat but is very very "delicate" - attempts to polish it destroys it.
I suspect it's aluminium that has been "flash" deposited (pellet of alloy is "boiled" to a vapour by electric arc and settles out as a reflective coating.

Anybody know for sure??

Mac.

[Ride_on]

After a bit of research, it seems likey they are vacuum deposited aluminium. I believe this may need tooling and will be expensive for small runs.

http://www.finishing.com/271/71.shtml

The alternative seems to electroplated silver which is better but could be expensive for different reasons.

http://www.ashfordchroming.com

Maybe I will call these guys tomorrow.