Jump to content
MikeC

front struts question

Recommended Posts

I had the Corsair GT shipped to Australia in 2009. I bought it from a dealer in Essex who imported old Fords from Italy for resale in the UK. At that point in history I could have bought a good Mark 1 Cortina GT locally for reasonable money, but my first car was a Corsair and I knew I'd eventually regret buying a Cortina instead. I don't have enough money or space for two hobby cars! Anyway, compared to a Cortina GT, a Corsair 1500 GT is brilliant value for money IF you can find one.

 

A side repeater is a small lamp on the side of the car which flashes when the indicator on that side is flashing. They were mandatory in Italy, Austria, and probably other countries.

 

The car's got sealed beam lights now, I couldn't use the non-sealed Italian headlamps because the dip goes to the right, which is the wrong way  for Australia.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
11 hours ago, SusanButcher said:

A side repeater is a small lamp on the side of the car which flashes when the indicator on that side is flashing. They were mandatory in Italy, Austria, and probably other countries.

 these round ones were common in Austria, but not mandatory. that´s why they are often in different positions (here my GT in early eighties-i still own it, amd on my Estate)

aaa1.jpg

aaa2.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Aaaa, thank´s for the language lessons:thumbsup:. Those side flasher wasn´t common in many cars in those days and became compulsory first at 1985 here in Finland. To be honest they are quite odd-looking in my eyes... Sorry, for my opinion in that case.:oops:

 

Then those sealed beem headlamps isn´t so good choise but isn´t it possible to find 7" headlamps for H4 that are made for the RHD cars? I have memorys of that I, in my work, had cheched import-cars from UK that had H4 and dips on the "wrong" side for our traffic here...

Now I remeber; it was Carboddies, the Brittish taxi and from -96 and they had those headlamps for RHD and H4´s. A normal 7" that fits in our favorite cars.

 

It was a quite long story with those headlights in that car. From 30.6 1995 the headligts have to be adjustable or adjustable rear suspension because of how much the rear end will go down with weight in the back and how the headlamps starting to dazzle oncomming traffic.

 

This particular car was from 1996 and it was impossible in a normal way to fix those old-fashioned head lights to be adjustable. So at first we, in the MOT inspection station, had to turn off all lights in the building, put the the taxi in a certain distance to a wall, draw a line on the wall where the light image is. Then we had to get a number of people to get in to the taxi in the back seat as many as possible and then take a look where the light image ended up...

 

Finally we had to try figure it out how much all these peoples weighs... Guess if all this  it ended up in a big laugh when we also tried to do this seriously:rofl:.

But the results was that the had to put adjustable rear shocks because it was the easiest way... But the customer did it all so wrong it could be; they put the shocks up side down, forgot the air compressor, connected it wrong in everyway possible way, but finally they got it right so they had only to put the normal "right side on the road" headligts. But the whole this took a ½year to get passed.

 

Okay, this was little beside the whole thing but I´m quite sure that it will be possible to find the right headlamps for H4 and RHD. I´ve seen the here i Finland and we have LHD´s cars. I  even have some ones that don´t have any tips at all, but they aren´t so good anymore..

 

Is it hard for You get those to your Corsair from UK?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Good headlights must be  important in Finland with your dark winters. The Corsair currently has Stanley sealed beams salvaged from a wrecked Holden - there's plenty of rusty and wrecked old cars sitting on farms around here! I'd put H4 lamps in the Corsair if I was doing a lot of night driving in it, but it's best to avoid the night completely because of kangaroos. They're stupid animals who don't watch were they're going. Wallabies are smaller, but have a bit more sense when it comes to bounding across a road. Ordering parts from Britain is a problem at the moment. I've had one supplier refuse to send to Australia  because of the number of parcels going missing. And the postal service here is understaffed because of Covid.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi there!

Yes, we have a lot of darknes in the winter time,  but here where I live and more north of the northern polar circle we see the whole sun 24/7 in the middle of the summer. Here in the middle part of Finland we have no proper darks between the end of may and to end of july.

 

But with this hobby cars hobby the worst time is october-december and mars-april when it is freezes and melts about each other and they put tons of salt on the road that will not be so slipery. It´s better in the north Finland, Lapland. You could guess if the cars will start to rust.:tazz:

 

Most of the hobby cars "sleeps" in the winter time, maybee some day whe the weather is nice and colder than -5 deg celsius (they don´t but out salt when it is colder than that) we could take them out for a sunday ride or mesing around on a icetrack.

 

But back to the dark, we don´t have any kangaroos here or the smaller ones but we our mooses and they have no traffic sense. And to crasch with a moose in a old car it is a risk of dying, especially with large males with large horns. And the the deers, but they are smallers so the only splits the car as rabbits aslo do.

But for many years I almost drove over a lynx in the middle of the day and that´s very unusual to see them wander around in the villages in daytime. But any polar bears we don´t have (some people from USA belive that...) only normal brown bears.

 

Ok, again I fell of fthe red line...

One problem with H4 are that they are 55/60 W and the original "duplo" are 40/45 or 45/50 W. When using a H4 the lighting switch goes quite hot because of the higher woltage and burns the lighting switch. In our Cortina GT65 we putted H4 but with LED H4. The are much kinder to the switch and shines much better, but are not legal for road use here...

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm using H4 LED head lights in my MK1, for the problem you have raised. The LEDS draw much less current amps, and wont burn the switch. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

But Johnny, are LED H4 legal in UK? Most of the aftermarket LED lights aren´t legal here, only those witch have an "E"  and "CE"-marking.

Where have you found your "Lotus" rims and how wide are they?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
22 hours ago, Speedgroup said:

But Johnny, are LED H4 legal in UK? Most of the aftermarket LED lights aren´t legal here, only those witch have an "E"  and "CE"-marking.

Where have you found your "Lotus" rims and how wide are they?

 

I'm not 100% sure of the legality of the LED bulbs, but I'm guessing the only legal ones are "E" or "CE" marked ones, as you say.

What I do know is that most of them don't have any beam cut off , and blind any on coming traffic.

The ones that I am using , do produce a cut off on low beam, and have a "masking " piece on the bulb. If you don't know what you are doing with them, you could put them in wrong, and the kick up  could be on the wrong side (LHD) and again blind other drivers.

The ones I have can rotate for LHD or RHD, but you have to set the in the correct position, when you fit the bulb, so not like H4 where it can only go in one place, and not move, these can rotate inside the bulb fitting. So you could fit them sideways.

The Lotus wheels are 6J, They have no markings on them, they came on the MK1 when I bought it. They are new replica  wheels, make unknown.

At a guess  John Brown Wheels Smoothie, but  Can't be certain.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2/9/2022 at 11:42 PM, johnny boy said:

 

I'm not 100% sure of the legality of the LED bulbs, but I'm guessing the only legal ones are "E" or "CE" marked ones, as you say.

What I do know is that most of them don't have any beam cut off , and blind any on coming traffic.

The ones that I am using , do produce a cut off on low beam, and have a "masking " piece on the bulb. If you don't know what you are doing with them, you could put them in wrong, and the kick up  could be on the wrong side (LHD) and again blind other drivers.

The ones I have can rotate for LHD or RHD, but you have to set the in the correct position, when you fit the bulb, so not like H4 where it can only go in one place, and not move, these can rotate inside the bulb fitting. So you could fit them sideways.

The Lotus wheels are 6J, They have no markings on them, they came on the MK1 when I bought it. They are new replica  wheels, make unknown.

At a guess  John Brown Wheels Smoothie, but  Can't be certain.

Okay, same as here then.

Those LED H4 that I bought was as normal H4 and have the right "light picture" for LHD and of course beam, "full and half light" as we say it in swedish. But I don´t know if these ones have the ability to change them to RHD, haven´t tried it for some reason:wink:.

But they are almost same looking as those in your link.

Those Lotus wheels replica have a little strange looking centre of the wheel compared with the original ones, but are they only 6" or is it possible to find 7" too?

Edited by Speedgroup

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Speedgroup said:

Okay, same as here then.

Those LED H4 that I bought was as normal H4 and have the right "light picture" for LHD and of course beam, "full and half light" as we say it in swedish. But I don´t know if these ones have the ability to change them to RHD, haven´t tried it for some reason:wink:.

But they are almost same looking as those in your link.

Those Lotus wheels replica have a little strange looking centre of the wheel compared with the original ones, but are they only 6" or is it possible to find 7" too?

 

They are 6 inch.

If they are JBW wheels , then you can get them in 7 inch.

click here

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Okay, thanks fore the link :thumbsup:.

But huh... so expensive. I can get 4 original 4" made to 7" for that prize of what one of those costs. I bought last year 4 8" Minilites little used for about 500 € to my racing Cortina.

 

The 5,5" and 6" are little more cheaper. But small series will always cost more..

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Uuuh, I have to learn to read properly; the prize was for four wheels, not for one...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Speedgroup said:

Uuuh, I have to learn to read properly; the prize was for four wheels, not for one...

 

 

I think that's expensive for steel wheels, these rally design alloys caught my eye.

Rally Design 7 X 13 Alloy

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yep, they look right and not so expencive.

 

I will try to fit 8" ET 0 Minilte (real ones) on my GT63 race car with 215/50R13 Kumho tires. It seems to work at the front but how is the rear...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...