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4/23/19: On to the headlights. The first issue, the headlight bezel screw retaining bracket on both headlight housings were rusted thru and wouldn’t hold a screw. Thus the reason I lost the drivers bezel when I brought her home from NC. I was elated a few weeks ago, to find I could buy replacement brackets and didn’t have to buy new housings.That feeling quickly diminished when I installed them and discovered that they were so thin, bent easily and just another example of cheep Chinese reproductions.

I reinstalled my newly painted headlight housings with new gaskets. I then installed a new harness that I made, then reinstalled the headlight buckets. I anticipated the adjustment screws being frozen so I ordered new screws and nuts. Upon reassembly I realized why these parts were so cheap. I quickly stripped one of the new screws heads so I decided to reuse the originals, a little rusty but still worked fine. I tried to install the new bulb retainers (rings) and they also are inferior to the originals. The originals were rusty and cracked near the mounting screws so they needed to be replaced. I couldn’t get the replacements to sit right on the bulbs. There was too much of a gap (almost 3/16”) between the housing and the ring tabs. I took the ring off a few times to make sure the bulb was seated but ended up with the same result. I went ahead installed the screws and tightened them down as much as I dared, with the result bending the tabs and still leaving a slight gap between the ring tab and the headlight bucket. These will need to be replaced with originals or at least better copies. I installed the new stainless headlight bezels and she is looking pretty. Those bezels look like their nicely made and did install correctly.

The headlights are now installed and they do work!