MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGF Technical - Brighter lights

This may have been discussed before but I couldn't find it on a quick look in the archives.

For a while there had been something black on the inside of the offside headlight dipped beam lens. I had put this down to a fly getting in and as I had dismantled the light last year to paint the bezel I was a little annoyed that I may have to go through the whole procedure again to remove the fly. Anyway after my Wife complained that I had become irritable and short tempered for the last few weeks I put it down to the annoying little fly and realised something had to done. When attempting to remove the black thing inside by using a thin piece of wood with sticky tape on the end passed through back of the bulb aperture, more black bits appeared. I managed to retrieve one of the black bits and it turned out to be a carbon deposit. A closer inspection revealed that the carbon was falling from the metal that surrounds the dipped bulb. There are two small screw holding this metal thing in place at the back of the light and being careful not to drop the screws you can remove the metal shroud with the light unit remaining insitu. The inside of this metal shroud was completely covered with carbon and was easily cleaned. The hole in the back of the headlight was the same size as the vacuum nozzle and all the fallen carbon deposits were easily removed.

Now for the interesting bit. After reassembling the back of the light the dipped lens has more of the original 'sparkle' to it. Also, when testing the lights in the garage the cleaned one is significantly brighter and sharper than the other...arrrrg. That means the lights now look different so divorce will be looming if I don't get the other cleaned and looking the same!

Has anyone else notice this carbon build up before? Could this be the result of having painted the bezels? - Someone on the Lotus visit said I may have problems with the vapours from the paint.

Neil
Neil Stothert

Interesting Neil. For my clarification really, were your dipped beam lenses also misty/clouded? Were you able to clean these too?

I'm not sure whether you have a paint problem- afterall the paint should have cured some time ago?
Rob Bell

Rob

I didn't attempted to clean the lens because of the damage that can easily be inflicted on the bright bezel. However, when I dismantled the light completely for painting last year I gave the dipped lenses a good clean. Initially I didn't think they were any different but now when comparing to other older Fs they don't appear as misty/cloudy. Cleaning the metal bulb shroud thing appears to improved them a little bit. The improvement in performance, however, is much improved from cleaning this metal thing. I'm beginning to think the whole performance deterioration is due to carbon build up.

Neil
Neil Stothert

This thread was discussed on 24/05/2002

MG MGF Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGF Technical BBS is active now.