FRONT TURN SIGNAL refresh & relector upgrade

im3crazy · March 26, 2016

I noticed that my front turn signals began looking dimmer, and a little dingy. We needed to address the (1) Gaskets, (2) the reflectors, and (3) the wire connections and ground bonding.

The gaskets had long since retired, and the lenses were getting water and dirt inside. It was time for a rebuild and improvement. Since this approach worked well on my rear tail light rebuilds, it made sense to clean up the reflectors and cover them with my favorite Aluminum HVAC tape.

GASKETING: It was really a chore to remove the old gaskets because the PO had glued them sdrawkcab with the wide section under the top metal housing that extends under the bonnet. The gasket should be installed with the recessed face mating to the lens edge, not over the lens and under the metal plate. How do these things happen?

After thorough cleaning, we used a slower acting contact cement to paint both surfaces of the gasket and the housings

We made sure we did this in stages so it was easier to mate the correct surfaces.

We did the top leading surface of the lens and the inner face of the gasket first. This allowed us to fully seat the gasket onto the lens edge.

Then, we glued the upper surface of the gasket to the upper metal surface.

After fully sealing the inner and top surfaces and upper faces, we did the remainder of the housing surface and made sure the gasket is keyed to the housing, making sure the gasket lines up with the housing "keys."

and fully seated all way round.

REFLECTOR: We need all the light output we can get! These were not bad, but never the best design for visibility over a period of time. The reflecting surface deposited on the plastic deteriorates over the years, and significantly reduces the visibility of the device. We had a great result (measured at nearly doubling the output of the Roundie tail lights) so we figured it was the best approach for the front turn signals.

We cleaned the surfaces, then almost carefully attached the aluminum tape to the surface.

Using the rounded back of a small screwdriver, we burnished the tape to remove most of the imperfections.

We covered all the bleakly anodized surfaces to improve their reflective surfaces.

ELECTRICAL CONNECTIONS: These were never really great, and are the second most common reason for front turn signal failure ( the others being grounding, bulb filament or contact failure, and fuses).

If you don't know and use DEOXIT, please meet my little friend. I've used this product for years on Hammond organ key contacts, and it's a miracle worker. My two favorite electrical products are DEOXIT and Dielectric Silicone paste. I've seen contacts that we serviced 12-15 years ago that are still perfect because of good connection technique, and these two products used correctly.

We liberally applied to all contact surfaces, then applied a bit of dielectric paste on the contacts.

GROUNDING: We have not shown it here, but will add it back when installed. We add a short (9" #18 stranded green wire with two #4 ring terminals) that screw to the body and to the turn signal lamp frame; directly to/through the grounding rivet. More DEOXIT and silicone to finish at the installation

RESULTS: There's really a significant output difference once this upgrade is done. Here are a few reflection examples; we will post a before and after shot of the actual lamp output appearance. (We take the shots at a fixed distance using a fixed digital camera iris and speed setting so we can repeat for as accurate "visual" comparison as possible.

Active lighting results. Here are a few samples comparing the update reflector frame to the old non-reflective upgrade. In both the actual bulb reflector has been upgraded. There appears to be a major difference in the before and after samples.

BEFORE: Little reflectivity along the front portion inside