Ach, my neck. So a simple headlight change took 90 minutes this am.
I found my non-working headlight to be in two pieces-never saw the glass brake
in the recepticle before. Anyway, it was straight-forward to remove the shiny
RIM, outer exposing the RIM, inner (parts named according to the Moss Catalog),
easy to remove the 3 screws of the RIM, inner, easy to remove the two broken
pieces and then ...
Replaced the bulb with a new one and turned on the lights to make sure the
wiring was ok. Smoke started filtering through the sunlight. Oops. Quickly I
flicked off the switch. The bulb looked fine; the wiring looked fine...figured
I had put some fingerprints somewhere on the bulb and the grease smoldered. Ok,
turned lights back on, no smoke(good), both headlights worked on normal, so I
flicked the high beams...only darkness from the new bulb.
Took the 3 screws off again and lo, the wiring had broken from one of the 3
sockets.
So out came the soldering iron, an extension cord, and finding the solder took
10 minutes alone, the pleasures of stripping 28 year old wire ??, opening the
connector to remove the old stub of a piece of wire, resoldering the connector,
and the cool 72F degree morn was now 82F 50 minutes after I started.
Reassembled, turned the lights on and they were fine. Turned the highs on and,
Voila!, they both went on.
But the damn bulb was wobbling between the two pieces of the inner rims. That
was no good, so off came the Rim, inner again (yes, two different parts are
called inner rims by Moss, an INNER RIM and RIM, inner). Tried another RIM,
inner I had saved from a junker and it still wobbled, so I went back to the
original RIM, inner, and noticed another of the 3 wires was about to break, so I
stopped in my tracks and resoldered that connector.
Taking pieces of engine gasket material (which I am hoping will not become
inflamed from the heat of the bulb), I made some gasket shims to fix the bulb in
place, rescrewed the RIM, inner to the INNER RIM, and lo, I now had 2 working
headlamps. The temperature was now about 86F.
The headlamps worked like the eyes of an amblyopian, so I took another 10
minutes to reposition the lights. A simple bulb exchange to 90 minutes.
What did Marlon say near the end of Apocalypse Now, "the horror, the horror." I
would say, 'the pleasure???, the pleasure???'.
Happy 4th you all and thanks, Mr. Brando.
Bill Saidel
76B
BMCSNJ
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