Exterior Lighting

This post covers the restoration and/or replacement of the lighting fixtures of the Bugeye Sprite. The image below taken from the Sprite Service Parts List illustrates the components of the car’s lighting system:

Bugeye Lighting

The Bugeye Restoration Video Episode Forty (link below) covers our restoration efforts. Where parts were perished, such as rubber seals, they were replaced with new items. However, some original parts were cleaned and repainted to continue their service.

Headlight bowl and mounting ring

Light bulbs in the flashers (turn signals) were replaced with LED units. These are much brighter, consume lower amperage, and produce less heat. This requires replacing the flasher relay can with a substitute suited for LEDs. The headlights currently on the car are Wagner sealed beam halogen bulbs and we will continue to use these. The bulbs in the number plate lamp are incandescent units and we will also continue to use these.

The headlight chrome rims are secured to the headlight bowl with a clip and screw as seen below:

Headlight Trim ring securing screw clip

These screws can be a challenge to mount. MGBs used a spring clip instead of the screw clip. We substituted these spring tension clips and hopefully they will work well. We can always go back to the original approach.

With all of the parts refurbished and accumulated we are now ready for installation at a later date.

Restoration Video Episode Forty:

https://vimeo.com/821030670/8c6841c388?share=copy

Episode Forty includes the following content:

0:00 – Headlight assembly

2:50 – Front sidelights/flashers

3:04 – Rear flashers

3:13 – Number plate lamp

3:31 – Rear tail lights

3:46 – New rubber seals, headlight pigtails, plinth seal, dust seals, spire nuts

5:20 – Trim ring spring clips