The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Parking light lense retaining "nuts"

I bought new fornt parking lights for my '50 but now both have one side where the "nut" attached to the light body that the lense mounting screw engages has disengaged. They appear to be some form of weld nut that did not get welded properly and because they are located on the front side of the housing they are not captured by the housing.

I tried epoxy to attach them to the back side of the housing but it did not hold.

If I install a longer screw with a loose nut behind the housing to attach the lenses I can not install the lights into the grille because the spacing between the cross bars is not large enough.

The area on the back side of the housing is not capable of using a j-nut type fastener.

Any ideas about the best path forward would be appreciated.

No reason epoxy shouldn't work if everything is perfectly clean. What is the part made out of? Steel, aluminum, stainless?

What about using epoxy to build up an area that can be drilled and tapped? Even if you get epoxy inside the nut you can run a tap through it.

I recently used JB Weld to attach a flat head screw to the back side of the stainless trim that goes on the radio grill. The original was a square head screw that was captured by being pressed into a square hole on the trim. The old one was rusted and I had to cut the nut off it.

A spot welder could be used to reweld those nuts on to the housing. But like Otto said, epoxy should work as well.

I just sent you a PM.

Thank you Otto and Kevin for your input.

I beleive the original "nuts" in these aftermaket housings are brass or something similar (not magnetic). The holes in the housing are square but there does not appear to be a square feature on the "nuts" to engage it. building up the housing area with JB Weld then drilling and tapping may be my best bet to save these otherwise new housings.

Kevin, I saw and replied to your PM.

Another option is to get some steel weld nuts from some place like McMaster Carr. They could be soldered in place or welded.

The other option, is to send them back to the vendor and get them replaced.

Rivnut

Lots of DIY installation tool ideas online. You will not need much installation force on an aluminum rivnut. It will not spin when you install lens because you will not have much torque.

I hope I see your problem correctly, just had internet pics of the light assembly and grills. Never had an AD. You can use thin washers on both sides if hole left by the old fastener is too large..... or use the original fastener as an installation "sleeve".

bartamos, thanks for the link. I may go the rivnut path if the epoxy path I am on doesn't work.

Ok, hope it works out. Kind of hard to know if this will work without pics. At least is one more idea and idea sparker. I think I figured out the problem is you need to change bulb from the front, can't take whole light assembly out from rear or front. No access at rear due to inner fender structure. Is that right? I think i remember a post from a long time ago where I suggested drilling a hole in that fender structure for a nut driver to access a nut. That was po-po'ed I think.

Bartamos, thank you the continued interest. I have now welded nuts to the housings and hope that will be the end of it. They are not pretty but should be functional.

The problem is two fold, to install the lights into the grille the lens can not be in place because the overall size becomes too large to fit into the grille cross bar spacing as required to get the mounting studs through the mounting holes. The outside lens mounting screws are too close to the ends of the grille to provide access to a loose nut. I suppose an access hole coult be made in the inner fender that would allow installation of a nut through the hole but that would be challenging to locate.

I suspect the original problem is from the manufacturer of the housings as both lights had the original "nut" retention loss on the same side. One I could have used a loose nut but the other I could not because of the access problem.

Did you install a new aftermarket grill? I have similar issues with our parking lights glass and bezel. I’ve seriously considered making an access panel in the inner fender for other reasons.

I did not install a new aftermarket grille but I did rebuild my grille using a combination of parts from my original grille and a set of cross bars I bought from a fellow Bolter (my original was chrome in poor condition and I preferred painted).

Getting the lights in place between the grille cross bars is challenging as the spacing is pretty tight. To get the mounting studs through the holes the light needs to be tipped in from the rear but the overall height of the light with the studs extending makes the entry angle into the holes cause the studs to grab the hole edges. I slightly larger hole or slot would help.

An access panel would provide options to access the back side of the light but I don't think it would help the light installation problem.