[xj-s] Headlight Resilvering

[Mike Morrin <mikem@southern.co.nz>]

I just finished rebuilding one of my headlights.  Mine are the early oval
euro spec lights, which are made by Cibie and have separate reflectors and
bulbs for high and low beams.

The silver plating had deteriorated over 24 years, and the light was quite
dull.  I found a shop that does silver plating of sports trophies, and yes,
they also do headlight reflectors.

The job is mainly a matter of careful disassembly.  The light unit has 7
main parts:

* glass lense
* front section of the reflector shell
* high beam reflector
* high beam bulb holder
* low beam intermediate lense
* low beam rear section reflector shell
* low beam bulb holder

The lens and reflector shell were originally assembled with something like
epoxy body filler, white and quite hard and inflexible.  It softens up a
bit when heated.  The lens almost fell off, it seemed that most of the
adhesive had already let go.

The high beam reflector is held in with 2 rivets which I drilled out.  The
high beam adjuster grubscrew should be screwed IN until it drops out.

The two sections of the shell have more filler, and 2 spring clips.  I
scraped out as much filler as I could (aided by a heat gun), removed the
clips, and prised the sections apart.

The intermediate lens (held by 3 spring clips) then comes out.  The lens
was slightly discoloured with age (greenish yellow), but there is not much
that can be done about that.

The bulb holders are held in by crimped dimples, which can be straightened
with a suitable punch. 

I cleaned off the old filler, and took the 3 silvered sections to the
plater.  I cost NZ$200 (about US$100) to replate the pieces.  Then just a
simple reversal of the earlier process, being very careful not to touch the
silvered surface.

I used white RTV to hold everything together.

When reassembled, the high beam would not adjust high enough (I suggest you
check this before gluing the lens on), but I was able to get a screwdriver
through the high beam bulb aperture in the main shell and put some more set
on the high beam reflector mounting lugs. 

The results are quite satisfactory, with the other headlight now looking
dull by comparison, maybe next year...

Regards,

Mike Morrin
'75 XJ-S with one good eye and one excellent eye.

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