Estate rear lamp bases

[Burdekin]

Hi Guys,

Would anyone have any rear indicator/break/reverse lamp bases for an estate in good condition?

Cheers,

Mitch

[biggles24]

Hello Mitch,
If I had known I could have brought a pair to Dundee!These are not ready for concours set ups but basically sound and you can have them free if you pay the postage.Let me know what you think.
Regards,
John

[swedishandgerman]

Hiya Mitch

Your estate is looking absolutely wonderful. However, I nearly posted a comment on the condition of your rear lights!

Those back light reflectors, connectors and wiring deteriorate on Amazons. Even brand new ones aren't great. The reflective material just is not reflective. Connectors go manky, wiring gets threadbare and the already poor reflective material gets even worse. The inside of the lenses also get dirty. When bad, the rear lights look little better than a glowing filament

Reconditioning them allows you to bring them to better than new

To improve the wiring, you need to carefully take apart the connectors and springs on the back of the unit. You need to give everything a really good clean up. I find a suede shoe wire brush excellent and a small electrician's file. You need to get rid of all the mank and I mean ALL!

The way the wires touch the tips of the bulbs is not great and you will probably find the connectors have deteriorated to nothing. In which case, you can attach a blade connector which is carefully cut down to size. Solder all wires

On the other side, you need to clean out the recess into which the bulb fits so that the bulb grounds properly. I used all new bulbs as even the bases of all mine were affected by the build up of white fluffy corrosion in there.

The next thing I did was a superb piece of advice I took from someone on this forum. Whom, I can't remember, but it was a fantastic bit of advice. Sticky backed aluminium foil - SUPERB stuff! I got mine form Maplin electrical. Cheap, cheap, cheap! Stick it all over the surfaces of the reflectors.

Don't forget to clean the inside of the lenses

The result is a good voltage at each bulb and they are MUCH brighter as well as the rear lights looking much less dull, even when the bulbs aren't lit. Reversing lights that you can even see with

A couple photos of the back of my car:

[Burdekin]

Originally Posted by biggles24

Hello Mitch,
If I had known I could have brought a pair to Dundee!These are not ready for concours set ups but basically sound and you can have them free if you pay the postage.Let me know what you think.
Regards,
John

Hi John,

Thank you for the offer and that would be great and appreciated. I've sent you a PM.

Regards,

Mitch

[Burdekin]

Hi Adam,

Thanks very much for the reply and information!

My lenses and reflectors are new but I also have plenty of the alumnium foil so I can add that to the reflectors to make them better. I think it would also work well for those wanting to recondition the interior chrome trim on the door panels etc as it is very sticky and should polish up quite nicely.

John has offered to send me a set up which is very kind of him so I will work on getting the rear lights working brightly and properly as you suggested.

On another note, I've not got around to taking the choke cable out as yet. I'm hoping to get to start the interior this weekend and need the car running so I can move it about.

Cheers,

Mitch