headlight retaining ring

[french dave]

Hi All,have bought some new headlights 7inch quadoptic and some new plastic bowls with retaining rings.when i have come to fit them have noticed retaining rings are not as deep (12mm)as ones coming off car(18mm) which are badly rusted.the clips provided to hold lens into ring dont fit the new headlight?.when i managed to get an old clip off original lens the clip although it fits new headlight is too deep.i think i need deeper retaining rings.has anyone else had same problem?

[phillpot]

By coincidence I put the headlights back in the Taimar today (standard 7" units, same as an S), plastic back bowls and slim 12mm rings. the headlamp unit is held into the ring by three screws and three little clips or brackets.




My S has metal bowls and deeper rings and if I remember correctly headlamp is held into the ring by another backing ring rather than the three separate brackets like the plastic one.

These parts are made by various suppliers, Lucas, Wipac etc. and all use their own method and all should work but due to different designs mix 'n match is not a good idea!

Only problem I can recall having once was the three little lumps on the back of the headlamp that locate into the three little brackets were too wide, guess I was mixing Lucas lamp with Wipac holder or whatever, can't recall how I over came it but couldn't have been a big problem?

These are the rings that came with the metal bowls on the S, quality of chrome is rubbish in fact it could be bright zinc plate? Either way I found some better ones at a Car Show/Autojumble.