Keeping My Guard Up

So a while back I ordered some headlight stone guards which is something I really wanted on this car. They are fairly generic items that are readily available for all 7” headlight units and “normally” fit with three brackets onto the plastic headlight back bowl, under the main chrome bezel. Now on my headlights this fitment method is not going to work because I’m using the stainless steel headlight bowls mounted horizontal as opposed to vertical like they are intended (which I covered in an earlier post) 

I have had my brain thinking as to how I can now fix these guards onto my headlight units and keep them looking professional and look like they were intended to be there and not a stick on after thought. 

I order some more stainless steel M5 button head machine screws but only 10mm long this time along with some lovely M5 knurled blind nuts which are going to work a treat. 

This whole build process on this car has involved some serious fabrication of parts and brackets etc… something I’m really enjoying doing, as it will make the finished car 100% unique and tailored to my taste and style along with hopefully making it interesting for people to look at when I’m out and about in it. The pleasure I get with my Cobra is looking at other cars the same and seeing how other people have solved the same issues but in a different fashion. 

So let’s start making or changing the brackets that came with the stone guards. I started off flattening out the bracket and then shortening them slightly. I had to cut them just behind the original hole and then clean it all up with a file. Once that was done I needed to drill another hole for the M5 machine screw to pass through so this was just measured and centre punched then drilled through. I could have done all these brackets at once, but because I was not following anything other than my own idea I just did one bracket at a time and that allowed me to make minor adjustments with how I had to bend and manipulate them slightly for a better fit. 

I then masked off the main polished stainless bezel of the headlight bowl and after some careful mocking up I marked the hole I needed to drill to push the machine screw through. 

This all worked out really nicely and after I had drilled the main bezel I was able to fix the first bracket and then move onto the next one. Because I’m fitting tripod headlights I want the fixing brackets and knurled buttons to mirror the symmetry of the tripod bars in the headlights, so the first one was in the top centre and the other two at around 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock position. Then after a little fettling with bending the brackets accordingly I was able to refit the headlight within the bezel and then back onto then bowl.

I was a tad concerned that when refitting the bezel onto the bowl, that the now head of the machine screws would void the lip of the bowl and I would have to cut some notches out. However I was pleased to see that the machine screw button head, even with the added depth of a locking spring washer, did not effect the fitting of the outer bezel at all and they fitted back on perfectly as intend and the now overall finished effect and look is absolutely awesome (in my opinion) they look really period for the car and certainly not a stick on component…. All for about 4 hours work in my garage and a total cost of around £24 total… happy with that!