V2Rocket

I wanted to have the euro-style driving light/foglight combination and went in search of broken lenses to salvage the mount parts from. That search was rather unsuccessful for whatever reason - I only managed to get one person to send me their busted lens, and the parts I needed on that busted lens were busted as well, so that went out the window (along with around $30).

Rather than waiting for more parts to become available I decided to do it myself.

Rather than use the rather odd factory design (that allows adjustability for aiming) I decided to make it simpler, yet still leave room for adjustability, albeit somewhat more involved.

I made a small bracket to attach the standard reflector lens to the housing. I happened to have an old Steel-Tec (children's erector set) kit laying around and the parts happened to be just about perfect, and more or less free. A small amount of dremeling out a hole was all it took, along with bending slightly the ends of the bracket to match the profile of the lens. The brackets look cheap because they are. I might braze/threadlock/epoxy the nuts so they don't come loose. You could make something similar with a small strip of metal and a drill in a matter of minutes.

For attaching it, I drilled a hole in the plastic housing (as you would anyways for the factory parts) and went to the hardware store for an assortment of nylon screw spacers in various sizes (1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 3/4, 1") and secured it with a #8x2 screw
(screw will need to be longer for more than 1-1/8" spacing). The spacers (or washers, or whatever you want) have small enough increments that you can angle the lights however you want them to shoot straight ahead or "toe-in" slightly for a bright spot in front of your car.

I originally had some 11mm spacers before the nylons and the lights pointed outwards at maybe a 30* angle. Currently I have the 1" installed so I will test that later and maybe take pictures if it looks good. Regardless, I can pull the lights off and change spacers around as needed in a matter of seconds.

Currently I just moved the fog light bulb over to the driving light position for testing, had to add an extension wire to reach. I will be adding special wiring for the driving lights alone soon, probably with a 100W bulb being powered off the alternator with a special harness. The goal is to make these my primary headlights, and go to vt951 or similar manual pop-up light brackets for weight savings and engine bay space.

Total cost (not including spare bulb reflectors) - $7, and I can return whichever spacers I don't use, bringing the cost down to about $3 total for both sides.

F18Rep

Hey, I love innovation but ya might have crossed the line salvaging from the kid's toy box...;] Those oil spots look familiar though....Bruce

Paulyy

nice work!
are yours bright enough to use as driving lights?

V2Rocket

I was surprised at how thick the metal is, it is pretty sturdy stuff for being a toy...maybe 1/16" lol. Believe it or not those oil spots are not leaks, but drippings after hosing off the underside of the car to get road grime off!

Right now they are the 55w fog light bulbs in the driving light sockets. I have used them the last few days, and even with them pointing out into the universe they still make a good, bright spot of light. Hopefully with them better aligned now they will be good enough as headlights. Will take pics when it gets dark...

Eric_Oz_S2

Great innovation, although I can imagine a future thread in years to come:

"PO used kids toy parts to fix my Porsche!"

Scott H

I love the use of the erector set pieces. I think I'll pick up some random pieces on eBay and keep them in my big box of crap (or box of solutions, as I prefer to call it) in the garage.

gregeast

Hi Spencer, not sure how I missed this thread but good work!

Love the mounting bracket but confused as to what you did to actually get a reflector/bulb holder/bulb in there. Did you buy the factory driving lights and mount them up? If so, got part #'s?

V2Rocket

They are the same reflectors as the foglights. Apparently you trim off the bulb shroud for driving light purposes though. The factory silver reflector is just sort of sprung in place.

gregeast

Thanks. So the reflector and bulb holder are already in there or do I need to source fog reflectors?

gregeast

Ok, I went and pulled a foglight so as to enlighten myself and now better understand what's necessary. So, now the only question is, where did you source the foglight reflector from?

exp951

I did the same in my car sourced the reflectors on ebay

gregeast

Were you able to buy the reflectors by themselves or did you have to buy another set of US spec housings, etc.? Are the reflectors the same between NA and Turbo fogs?

V2Rocket

Turbo are different than NA

gregeast

Ok, so where did you get the reflectors from? You guys are killing me, lol...

ELLSSUU

Buy someone's cracked lights and replace the plastic plate with the fog light reflectors.