Different headlight rings - which one is original?

[slowbert]

I bought my 1972 2002 in 1991 after it had been through at least a couple owners.  In my rebuild, I noticed that there are two different kinds of headlight bezels.

 

One bezel hugs the lightbulb all the way around and the other has an extension or 'hood' of maybe an inch or so at the biggest point.

 

Which one is original?

 

 

 

['76mintgrün'02]

The "hood" is an adaptor piece to fill in the gap on deep grilles.  It could be that the other one is just missing.

 

Here is a good discussion on the topic.

 

 

[Mike Self]

If the VIN on your car is higher than 2580165, it would have been equipped with the "shallow" grilles, and chrome plated symmetrical headlight retainer rings.  Those shallow grilles were used only on US spec 72 and 73 roundies, and have been NLA for many years. 

 

So the chance are good that one of your shallow grilles was damaged, and replaced with a "deep" grille (which actually refers to the headlight surround part of the grille), which also requires a much wider, and asymmetrical retainer right (there are lefts and rights).  

 

mike

[slowbert]

@Mike Self and @'76mintgrün'02 Thanks for the help.  My VIN is 2584627, so just after the transition.  The grills on the car are both 'shallow' (although both are missing the top rail and were painted black).

 

The car had one of each - SB43 and SB22 - retainer rings, however.

 

Armed with this knowledge, I will go through the spare parts pile to see if I can put together a matched set, or I might be in the market for some trim parts. 

 

[Conserv]

1 hour ago, slowbert said:

@Mike Self and @'76mintgrün'02 Thanks for the help.  My VIN is 2584627, so just after the transition.  The grills on the car are both 'shallow' (although both are missing the top rail and were painted black).

 

The car had one of each - SB43 and SB22 - retainer rings, however.

 

Armed with this knowledge, I will go through the spare parts pile to see if I can put together a matched set, or I might be in the market for some trim parts. 

 

The retainer ring with the asymmetric filler ring (first photo below, a cropped version of your photo from the initial post) will not work with a shallow grille.

 

But… the asymmetric filler ring was generally not permanently affixed to the retaining ring. If you can compress the asymmetric filler ring slightly, it will generally separate from the retaining ring. And… the retaining ring may be just what you need with your shallow grilles.

 

Stated differently, if you simply break down the deep-grille-style component, you should have a suitable shallow-grille-style component.

 

As pointed out above, however, there were some slight variations among the retaining rings — e.g., “SB 43” versus “SB 22” — none of which appear to alter the retaining ring’s function. 
 

The second photo below shows a once-engaged set of asymmetric filler and retaining rings separated…  (The retaining ring — top — was re-plated.)

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

[slowbert]

@Conserv You are correct.  The chrome ring does come off and maybe I will just use the remaining ring to hold the headlight in place if I don't happen to have an SB43 ring handy.

 

Thanks for the help!

[Mike Self]

A second possible solution to your problem.  Squarelight cars used the same retainer ring as shallow grille roundies, except they're powder coated black vs chrome-plated.  So if you can find one of those, you can either have it chromed, or paint your other one black...they're probably easier to find than the chrome 72-73 retainers...

 

mike