You gotta love the HAMB, it's so inspiring. I really enjoy participating, and try to keep my posts positive - or at least funny. So here is my solution to fit 7" headlights in my 1937 Plymouth gasser - on the cheap! As you can see, all I have is the buckets and the factory stainless trim. As I searched for options, even the "frenching" kit was over $200, not including bulbs. I did find one conversion kit for a 37-38 Chevy, but it didn't appear to have all the parts that I needed.
So I ordered up these Speedway motors headlights. For $49.99, you get black buckets, chrome retainers, hardware (that you don't need), pigtails and headlights. Here they are just sitting inside the factory bucket.
I'm sure this has been done before, and don't expect to win anything. Hopefully, this just motivates people, like tech week has motivated me. So the first order of business was to try to hold the new housing centered in the old one. Turns out, a sheetrock screw threaded up through a factory hole on the bottom, made a nice adjustable crutch. Next up was to fabricate some tabs, snip.... snip.... snip....
Time to butcher some brand new parts! You can see on the photo of the original bucket, that I had first made alighnment marks once I had the clock position of the new bucket dialed in. I cut the back open on the new bucket because that's where the wires will come out and eventually feed through the side of the original bucket. Turns out, the hole in the back provided a great "finger hold" to position the new bucket inside the old one.
It's all coming together now. I didn't even ask my wife to hold the new lamps in front of her bare chest, that would be cheating! After welding the tabs on the outside, I shoved them inside. The tabs were kind of "sprung", so it fit tight. I was able to sneak my welder inside between the two buckets and weld them to the old buckets, far enough back so that the factory stainless trim would go back on.
Here it is cleaned up a bit for the "photo shoot". I enlarged the opening on the bottom so you can access the retaining screw. I love how it is chrome sticking out from chrome (stainless). I only did the one side so far, because I'm getting ready for paint on the gasser, and headlights aren't the priority.
Great idea. I have to do something just like this for my '37. My car is going to be a street driven car, can you adjust and aim the lights in the Speedway lights? I have this article from the April '73 issue of Rod& Custom that I was going to try to copy. It's another seemly cheap way to do it:
The factory bucket / mounting stud is how you "aim" these headlights. The whole bucket moves, no springs or any B.S. like that to worry about.
The '37 Buick's lights are new to me. I've never had an outside type of light set up before on any of my vehicles. I'm not sure of the procedure for adjusting the lights. I'm so far away from worring about aiming the lights but it's nice to gather all of the information I can. Once I get the lights working I'll post on the Buick sites and watch them blow their fuses, they don't like anything but stock.
The Jalopy Journal
