wello

ford service cannot fit their factory supplied plastic covers to my headlights as the gap under the front of the headlight assembly is too tight. i imagine i could fit them with a bit of major force and a large lever, does anyone have this problem and if so what have you done to make them fit , or is there an alternative protector that will fit properly.
cheers wello.

 

jnr

why are you putting plastic covers over plastic head lights????
they are pretty tough anyway

wello

pretty simply to protect the headlight from stones. where i drive on gravel overtaking or passing vehicles tend to throw rocks and there is nothing worse than having 1 headlight at night when kangaroos are lurking .
cheers wello from west oz.

aquahead2001

My brother got the headlight protectors for his Territory Ghia but forgot about the fog lamps. First trip along his narrow road and a car threw up a nice stone that split a fog lamp in half.

He definitely recommends getting the covers or using light skins now….

Frosty

I was under the impresson that the headlight lens were made out of ploycarbanate which does not shatter or crack so stones throwen up by a passing car will not break them. My terri came with covers but I put them away because I reckon they affect the preformance of the head lights, I live in a rural area and need as much light as I can get.

grahill

I believe that the headlight lens (polycarbonate) is rated at a 160KM/h impact. That would mean two cars traveling towards each other at 80km/h. Traveling on dirt roads much faster than that could mean disaster.


.

Frosty

I am not sure about that, I have put a peice of polycarbanate on an anvil and tried to break it with a hammer , it did not crack or shatter.The headlight protectors look and feel like perspex, if this is the case they would not be anywhere as tough as the headlight lenes.

wello

thanks for all the invaluable advice regards the headlights but has anyone found that there is a gap between the bottom of the headlamp and the adjacent plastic moulding to fit a
headlight protector.
cheers wello

mb350

YES!!! Our bumper on the passenger side rests against the bottom of the L headlight, whilst the driver's side has a 5mm gap. It's annoying, and not the only area that doesn't quite align properly. We were going to get all the plastic protection bits but here's another suggestion re headlight protection if you must have something to protect them.

I bought "invisible headlight protectors" by altrex from supercheap for about $30-40. They're a transparent thick vinyl kind of stick on stuff and despite which brand that sells them these ones are made by 3M as printed on the backing paper. I first found out about these ages ago when workshops started fitting these to our work vehicles instead of the acrylic plastic type because they kept breaking and were a pain in the backside to keep clean.

These 3M protectors have to be cut out from a sheet after you've made a template from tracing paper, I used baking paper. It can be tricky but if you take time the results are good. The biggest problem is eliminating air bubbles when you stick em on, the best way to help avoiding this is heating the sheet up by leaving it in the sun.

Read the instructions and do it right first time. I have only the driver's side covered at the moment, the passenger's side I put on cold and had areas that were perfect and others with bubbles I couldn't eliminate and tried to reapply several times. Eventually my finger marks interfered with the adhesive and to top it off dropped it sticky side down on the driveway. The best bit is, I don't know how, but the sticky side doesn't leave any residue on the headlight if you do stuff up or change your mind. Buy a small piece to try, the size to cover entire headlight and wrap around indicator is 550mm x 200mm with little room for errors. Cheers

johnydep

The sign writers apply stickers/labels by spraying some sot of soapy liquid onto the surface that will accept the sticker, then they apply the sticker & squigy the solution out.
Don't know if that will helpon the plastic lense, maybe ask a sign writer.