I sympathize with ya Bill, that was the third thing I noticed about the junk I bought for a right hand accessory tail light on my ’50, 3604. The first was that the chrome bezel didn’t fit worth a darn. Large gaps all around, like 1/8” in places, at the top where the rain could get in I could literally look inside and see the socket bracket, and yes the gasket was in behind the lens. The shape was a very poor copy of the original, nose was all wrong, and it was much thinner than the original and the plastic lens didn’t fit in the opening correctly, it rocked on high spots in some places and was too tight in other places. The glass lens that I was originally going to use really didn’t fit at all without bending the bezel.
Inside it had two, that were marked, 6v 8w bulbs, I suppose they were a compromise between the #63 (3w) and #1129 (21w) bulbs that should be in there. I tried (what I know as) a #1129 stop light bulb in the upper socket, no room for it, too big, the lens/bezel wouldn’t go on to the housing. I don’t for the life of me, know who started this new system for numbering auto bulbs, all these years we had a standard for the industry, 1154, 1129, 87, 63, 55, 51, etc.
Then ya get to the mounting! I have brackets from two vendors and both are incorrect. When mounted up so the wires clear the holes, it’s upside down and the flared out hole in the back of the housing still hits the edge of the clearance; turn it right side up and the flared hole misses by a third of a hole diameter. You can see what I mean in the Webshot below. Using the mounting holes in the bracket, the light was skewed to one side and I had to slot the mounting holes to make it square with the vertical line.
So Virginia, ya want pictures, do ya?! Take a look at this crap I recently bought from one of the vendors.
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2876706220098611668iJecQN Bill if you’re buying the “taillamp socket bracket”, forget it, it’s just a 1/32” thick strip of 1 1/8” wide tin by 3 5/8” long with four bends in it (bend it in the vise jaws) and two holes that measure .670” in dia. I also ordered two contact sockets so I could add turn signals but they won’t fit in the holes that are in the bracket and those were the only sockets the vendor listed.
Real bummer, the more of this reproduction junk I get the more I appreciate how we used to do things here in the, good old US of A!!!
I have yet to find any thing that I have replaced that was made as good as the original and I’m several thousand bucks into new parts. Sure glad I don’t have to replace any body parts! I can imagine what kind of a nightmare that could turn out to be.
Man, I think I’m gonna go try to scrounge around the garage and find something positive out there this afternoon!!!
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
