Several people have asked me lately what I did to make my headlights on my 52 Chevy look the way they do. Though I'm not 100% sure that I'd do it this way if I had to do it over again, I'll go ahead and put this out here for reference. Maybe some of yall can learn from my experience. I should note that this method uses more filler than many people would be comfortable admitting in public. However, modern fillers are much better than the fillers of yore... so it doesn't hurt my feelings like it might others. So here goes. Photo 1 shows what I started with. Next, I removed the headlight bezel, and the headlight bucket ***embly. I pulled out each of the J-clips that retain the headlight bucket screws and re-installed them backwards so I could mount the bucket ***embly from behind the fender.
3rd photo: I started mocking up different ideas for how the finished deal would look. Masking tape is a real good friend here! The 4th photo shows one of many that I took of a mock-up, then Photoshopped for better visualization. This is one I pretty much decided on, involving spacing the stock bezel out a bit, and leaning it out more at the top than the bottom.
I took some measurements of how much I wanted the stock bezel spaced at the top and bottom, then tack-welded a strip of 18ga. cold rolled sheet steel to the front of the fender. (5th & 6th photos)
Once the band was tacked on, I made a series of slices into the band using a cutoff wheel. (Photo 7) Closing the kerfs allowed me to reduce the diameter at the front of the band to better meet up with the stock Chevy headlight bezels.
I got so into the job, that I forgot to take any more pics till the end, so bear with me. I used the measurements that I took earlier to cut the band down a bit. In my case, I left it 1.125" wide at the top, and about 5/16" at the bottom. I filed the edge as necessary to get a good fit against the bezel. When satisfied with the fit, I tack-welded the bezel to the band. (The Chevy bezels are stainless, which can be welded to mild steel with MIG or TIG.) I welded everything up, tiny amounts at a time, including the kerfs I had cut to reduce the front diameter of the steel band. Using this method, it leaves a bit of a dip in the curve that goes from the top and outside of the fender to the new placement of the old bezel. This minimizes the amount of grinding that's necessary, but increases the amount of filler required, as I mentioned earlier. For the headlight rings, mine came from a swap meet, and as far as I can tell, and backed up by other HAMBers in a post I made a couple weeks ago, they are from a 52 Ford. These fit inside the Chevy bezels very nicely, but since the headlight bucket mounting flange was still on the fender, I couldn't fit the rings in from the front OR the back. I decided to break loose the factory spot welds on the rings, thusly splitting the rings. This allowed me to feed the rings in from the front/outside. They are retained by a sheet metal screw in the top, screwed into a tab I welded up inside the headlight tunnel.
Final photos show how the car looks right now. Lots of finish work left to do, but you get the idea...
Sweet! Seen the pics from the Drive In and noticed you had some primer on the front of your ride. Looks great and the quality definalty stands out. Looks like your dad has showed you some tricks. Keep up the great work.
Thanks, yall! One thing I forgot to mention, and forgot to do, was to cover up the gl*** in the car when you're welding and grinding. Those tiny flying orange balls of molten metal put the equivalent of about 80,000 miles on my windshield that weekend!
Man those look great! Thanks for the in-depth tech with pix. I can't wait to get started on mine. I got the pm you sent and I saved the pix to my puter. I'll let you know how is goes. Thanks again, Mike.
Damn that looks great. I wish I had the guts to just try something like that. I'd probably end up chopping off the whole front end. I have zero patience. Bah.
Sweet. Once the car's back at the house I know the first body mod she's getting. Thanks Mike, very much appreciated. Jef
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