Headlights - Who Needs Them - Part 1
I am busy trying to redesign the front end of the Tribute Torino to better handle the conditions on a dirt track speedway. Looks simple, you just have to replace the shiny bits with not so shiny bits right? I don't need any chrome, no adjustable bulbs, no trim rings, no frills, just aluminum fillers!
In order to make a simple headlight cover, a fair amount of design and fabrication work needs to take place. My first order of business was to locate, strip off the old paint, and prime both "new" headlight buckets. The headlight parts that came on the Torino were hacked up and not usable.
There are several problems with the original Ford headlight buckets when it comes to covering them with flat aluminum panels. The main problem is that there is no flat surfaces to rivet the aluminum headlight covers to. The headlight adjustment insert area stands proud about 1/2" above the flat surface of the bucket. There is one of these pads in each corner of the headlight bucket.
In order to solve this problem I designed a metal frame structure that will be attached to the headlight bucket using the four headlight adjustment screw holes. I first made a paper template to fit the space and then scanned it into my computer. I refined the drawing and produced a two-dimensional outline cut file. I then cut the frame from 14 gauge steel using a plasma cutter. Finally, I added four 1/4" - 20 weld studs to the back of the frames.
Mounting the new plates presented yet another problem. On the backside of the headlight buckets, there was very little room to get a 1/4" - 20 nut on the weld studs. There was also no room at all to get either a socket or wrench in these areas to tighten the fasteners! I ended up using coupler nuts that were tall enough to get a socket on. The coupler nuts fit so tight that I needed to grind off the high points from the lower 2/3 of their length.
The next step was to remove all the dead weight from the buckets without compromising the structure. Using two different size cutoff wheels, I cut away as much of the structure as I thought I could get away with. The aluminum strips shown below were added to provide support for the center of the frames. The strips will be riveted on and will provide additional rivet locations for the aluminum covers.
Here is the back of the headlight bucket with pins and other metal removed.
Once all the front end parts were prepped and primed, I bolted them together to get an overall idea of the fit and alignment.
During test fitting, I discovered that there are areas on the original cars which were a covered using a chrome headlight bezel. In order to fill these voids, additional parts would need to be designed, fabricated, and welded in place.
Once again, I created a paper pattern of the area that needs to be filled. I will go through the same process mentioned above to cut out the metal filler pieces.
Next up I need to figure out how to put several complex curves in the metal parts above without the use of a roll former? Hopefully in my next post I can show how that was accomplished. I also hope to have the aluminum headlight covers fabricated and installed. There are a few other modifications to the front valance assembly that I will cover as well. Thanks for checking out the progress....take care.
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