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Headlamp screw

Steve Brookes

Moderator
Just found that the threads on the tab inside one of the headlamp bowls have disintegrated and now there is no way to secure the headlamp in place [&o].

Anyone else had this problem and how did you fix it?
 
My headlamp had a fix done by the previous owner.
He put a C nut over the tab and a long 4mm screw through to hold it all together.
However the problem was he left out the spacer between the outer ring and the headlamp so when the screw tightened it caused the outer ring to bend inwards and several months later it has rusted through, so take care to use a spacer. If you haven't got one use an over sized nut.

David.
 
Steve,

There's a good short term "bodge" which works. If you thread a nylon cable tie through the hole and secure it around the tab the securing screw will get enough of a purchase on the cable tie to hold.

The real solution is to braze a new tab in place in the headlamp bucket. JZM did mine some years ago.

Regards

Dave
 
similar happened to me only the whole tab, not just the welded nut, disintegrated. it had me scratching my head for a bit.

Sounds like yours is slightly less catastrophic so you could just dremel off the old nut (will only have a couple of tacks to hold it in place) and put in a rivnut (maybe the hole will be too big for rivnut to be secure) or slide a chimney nut / speed nut (i think its 4mm) over the tab.

Mine was so far gone I filed off what was left of the tab so there was none left at all just clean metal in the headlight bowl. Then I cut some 2mm steel plate, about 3cm by 10cm. Not wanting to get into welding or brazing. I drilled one end to take a rivnut and the other to take a regular rivet. Bent up about 3cm of the end and fitted the rivnut. After much measuring, I drilled the bowl about 6cm in from the edge (to ensure I only had to rivet through one thickness of steel - not a section of double thickness where the bowl is spot welded to the wing) and rivetted the plate to the bowl. Finally I applied loads of anit rust primer and top coat and silicone sealant around the edges an to the back of the rivet.

If you're like me you'll want nice new rubber seals to stop it happening again but you'll then struggle to get the headlight back in nicely cause they're much fatter, after much farting around I found a liberal application of vaseline sorted it nicely. Also put loads of anti seize on both the "piggie back" screws holding the weadlight and trim ring in.

Alex
 
Thanks very much chaps for all the suggestions. It's comforting to know that I'm not the only one with the problem.

As you guessed my tab is in reasonable condition but the threads on the welded nut have all but disappeared. I first tried Dave's trick with the cable tie but there wasn't enough space to then get the screw in. So I resorted to wrapping the tab with PTFE tape:

SDC11192.jpg


That gave enough 'purchase' for the screw to tighten up so that it feels secure enough for now. To be safe I also put insulation tape round the rim:

SDC11193.jpg


Obviously this is only a temporary solution. I'll get it to a garage (Unit 11) and have the nut/tab replaced. From your experiences, it sounds like they will be used fixing these!

 
Happy to report that this has now been all sorted after a quick visit to Unit 11 today.

ORIGINAL: alexjc4

Sounds like yours is slightly less catastrophic so you could just dremel off the old nut (will only have a couple of tacks to hold it in place) and put in a rivnut (maybe the hole will be too big for rivnut to be secure) or slide a chimney nut / speed nut (i think its 4mm) over the tab.

Alex

This is pretty much what they did Alex. The tab was in reasonable shape so they drilled out the old nut and pressed in a rivnut. Now it's almost as good as new. And you're also right about those seals which will have to be replaced in due course.
 

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