A Tale Of Tail Lights

I love cars at times.

I'll share this and it would be interesting to see whether I have just been mega unlucky or whether every set of 610 lights has these issues.

So, for as long as I've owned the car (9 years now...where did that time go) the right hand rear lens has had a crack in it. Not a massively obvious crack and most people would probably live with it (you would struggle to notice it most of the time, especially with the lens cleaned up) but I'm a bit OTT with these things so it's been something I've wanted to sort.



Talk about opening a can of worms

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Anyway, a few years ago, I bought a brand new RH rear light unit off Stephen. Job done.

Of course, nothing is that simple.



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After 20 + years of use, the sun I'm guessing had taken it's toll on the light units and the units on the car were really rather faded compared to the new unit. Fair enough, I understand why this might happen? Unless the early cars had a slightly different tint to the lens than the later cars. But I doubt it. Either way, you couldn't really have one of each on the car, it would look very odd.

p.s. I know the pictures show LH units but they are the only pics I have to show the difference

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So the next thing was to keep an eye out for a new LH lamp to go with the new RH lamp. Not exactly common things and commonly regarded as obsolete and despite murmerings from some sources saying there might be the odd one in stocks somewhere, it wasn't forthcoming.

Cue a text from the Butcher of Sandbach some time later saying there was a brand new lamp on ebay and worth checking out although he wasn't sure whether it was the one I was after. A quick check confirmed it was the illusive LH unit and was brand new so would beautifully accompany the new RH unit I had. A small kings ransom later and the lamp was mine.

Of course nothing is that simple....



Two brand new, never been on a car units and there is a very noticeable difference.
Irritating but I doubt the difference would be that noticeable on the car with a large grill inbetween

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So the new light arrived just before Xmas. And being a right miserable fecker and hating all the festivities with a passion, I decide to get away from the family and go and fit the lights whilst I have a spare hour or two whilst they watch the Queen spouting garbage and then nodding off to sleep (my family that is, not the Queen - although I guess she probably even bores herself to sleep with that speech). I told you I was miserable.

A short while later and the lights are on. Not looking too bad actually. Probably just about get away with them.

Check everything is working. Start with the indicators, job good. Fog lights, job good. Reverse light, job good....

Better check the brake light and rear light too.

Seriously

John I'm enjoying this Xmas retrospective tail of Alpine fun. Every time I check in you have posted more,what happened next?

Well Miles, would you believe as I wedged a brick on the brake pedal and toddled off to the back of the car (being Xmas day, I was mildly inebriated) I was to discover the brake light part of the units behaving rather differently.

The LH unit is resplendent in Strawberry red as a brake light unit should be.
The RH unit is glowing in a pink tint as if it has got lost from some sort of gay pride festival.

Now as mentioned, being mildly intoxicated, I thought that the only explanation for this was that I had accidentally put the fog light bulb in the brake light bulb. Of course, that is utter bullocks because all the bulbs are clear so make no difference whatsoever to the glow of any of the lights. And apart from that, the are completely diiferent bulbs anyway.

Of course, things are never simple....

So a shit Xmas was made a little shitter as I closed the garage door and wondered what the hell I could of done wrong. Cue a few more sherberts and an early night after watching the Corrie Xmas Special.

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[BIG_MVS]

Hardest game in the world Alpines....

You need to get down to Dell boy's stash and see if you can match some pairs up.

I still reckon there are 3 or 4 maybe more batches with all different finishes out there. You have just been unlucky to get new old stock from the different batches.

Fast forward a few months (or maybe years ) and low and behold another set of lamps (second hand) become available. Great methinks, surely this set which have been sitting and being used on a car, despite it being an Elan won't have the same issue.

Of course, things are never that simple.

A torch shining through the back of this set confirm it has the same problems as the other set. This is weird. Something ain't right and I can't believe there is no one else who has this problem.

Sod this, they are coming apart. What becomes obvious is that the build quality isn't exactly great and the quality control is non existent.

Look carefully at the brake lens and you can see they are different. LH is right, RH is wrong.



Very noticeable difference in colour when brake light would be applied



And the outer lens'....

The aim was to fix a set of lights and make them look like new (or actually vastly improve on new).

The first thing to do was to fix the brake light colour so they were both the same. What I noticed was that when you put the 2 reflectors one on top of the other, the colour was right and the same no matter which way around you tried this. So I was thinking that if I could find some more of the right plastic and mould a top cover for the wrong unit. this would solve the issue. Then I thought about the red brake light tape that fixes lens, would that work? Gave it a try and this solved the issue. Brake light units were now the same strawberry red colour and a far easier fix. Using the tape meant you could cover the whole unit too, not missing the smaller parts around the white reflector, not allowing any of the wrong colour still to be there

Next up was the outer lens. I managed to tint them so the colours matched too. Result.

Before re-sealing the lights with black silicone sealant (imho looks lots better than that clear stuff originally used) I painted the leading edge of the lamps black on the inside. I think it just makes them look finished.



And found a rubber seal to use so the light sits nicely on the bodywork at the front of the lamp. Little things.

Excellent stuff ,looks better than new new .

Fully fitted. Darker than standard, improves on the standard units I reckon. Hope this thread may help someone at some point.

Check your lamps if you have a 610 set on your car.





And finally, test to check everything working

Very nice John

[stephendell]

All looking good now.

I still have 2 x new RH rear lamps in stock and 1 x LH rear sadly with a tiny hairline crack to the red reflector insert

[mettersl]

Looks great, how did you tint the covers?