Firstly there were some bad connectors that needed replacing.   Next, some of the wiring inside the wings were wrong.   Thirdly there were a couple of bad grounds.    I had been mostly looking at the connections where they join the front wing.     We were aided by a great diagnostic tool that I plan to purchase.   It let you test for voltage, ground, send 12v to test a component and much more.   It’s called VGate PowerTest.

The lights on the DS are great for a car of its age, especially the high beams aided by the inner driving lights.

Since the connections to the wings are not great, in the future I plan to replace the individual bullet connectors with a single harness connection for the 8 wires on the passengers side and 6 on the drivers side.  This will make removing the wings easier.  Not sure why Citroen didn’t do this as standard on the DS wiring.

Next we fixed a couple of bad connections for the rear indicators.   I need to solder one of the connectors back, and if that does not work, purchase a new one.       The final wiring related fix that was needed was the door contact switch on the passengers side.   The connectors on the reproduction switches are not the greatest, so the 12v wire had fallen off.   I had tried for ages to get it with magnets and hooks, but apparently the trick is to use a long piece of coat-hanger with a hook bent at the end.   We retrieved the wire and put new connectors on it.     The wiring on the car was now back to working again.     In the future, I plan to put the driving lights on a relay like the headlights, install a battery disconnect switch and use harness connectors at the top of the front wings.

As we did all this work, we identified a number of other things that needed attention:

• The door mirrors were reversed.   I didn’t know the passengers side is a few cm longer, and I had it on the drivers side.
• Chrome trim on the side of the roof is rather beat up and can be replaced without removing the roof.
• The bonnet release cables are incorrectly mounted.
• Windscreen washer cables not correctly routed and one jet is blocked.
• LHM leak from the front is caused by leaks from front suspension boots, in particular the passengers side.
• Window rubbers/felts on the outside/inside are wrong and don’t fit well.
• Passengers side front window needs adjustment.
• There are some missing pieces near the top of the bonnet that help hold on the insulation mats that I am yet to fit.

I also replaced the lens for the reproduction tail light with the original one.  In my case it was the housing that was dead and the lens was very poor quality.

It is hard to see from the photo, but the quality difference is immediately apparent when handing them.

The post Citroen DS front end wiring – part 4 appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

To test properly, I bought a proper test light.   This did allow me to more easily identify some of the wires and get basic stuff like the indicators hooked up.   I also got the side lights working correctly.    Headlights and main beams appear to be hooked up properly but one side is still not nearly as bright as the other.    This is especially apparent on high beam.

The first photo is the dipped beam and the second is the main beam.   The driver side is great, the passengers side still needs some work.   I was also not able to get the driving lights working yet.   I need to check, but it does not look they are using relays like the main and dipped beam.    It may be worth adding relays for these lights as well.    The Citroen DS headlights are very good for a car of its age (when they are working properly).

At least the lights are not staying on after the switch is turned off, and the light switch actuating the horn, so some progress has been made!

The post Citroen DS front end wiring – part 3 appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The wear parts of the headlights are the reflectors that dull and rust over time, the gaskets that crumble (as can be seen above) and obviously the bulbs.    The housings are generally ok, although they can be bent if the screws are tightened too much. The fasteners that hold on the lens can also break.

The reflectors and gaskets are still available from Mercedes, although they have become very expensive.   At minimum you’ll need the main reflector and the rubber gasket that seals the lens to the housing, and the gasket that seals the housing to the body of the car.   The first gasket is important to stop water getting into the headlight and ruining the reflector.   The second is important to seal the headlight to the car as this is a major rust trap for the 108-112 Mercedes.    In addition, you can also choose to replace the fog light reflector.   It is probably possible to also replace the reflector for the indicators, although I did not attempt this.

The picture above shows the difference between the new and old reflectors, and the headlight on the right was probably the best of the ones I had.   Make sure you buy the reflectors from a good source.  I got my foglight ones from an online place. They are a copy that does not fit particularly well and is missing the rubber mounting parts.   The main reflectors I got from MB Spares and not only were they a perfect fit but they came with all the mounts needed.

The old reflectors are quite easily removed.   They are held in by rubber mounts, and they just pull off.   Two of those mounts are adjustable so the lights can be adjusted correctly and do not dazzle other drivers.  The bulb assemblies just screw off also.

As can be seen on the photo above, the new main reflector is mounted from the rear, and there are holes for the bulbs that need to be inserted.   The foglight reflector is mounted from the front.  To get the most out of the lights, halogen bulbs can be used, but they need to be special ones that have old style connections.   I bought mine online.

The right bulbs will only sit in the reflector a certain way due to a notch that helps you locate it.   The original bulbs for these cars are 45w.   This might seem quite low, but I personally would not go higher on a 50 year old car unless I had re-wired the headlights and were using relays instead of sending all that current through the switch.    The small bulb also needs to be put in place before the bulb assembly is re-attached.

The lower reflector is fairly similar to the upper one except that the bulbs are more standard.  At this point it is worth hooking up the light to test it before the lens is fitted.

The first gasket is put on the front of the light in the channel so that the glass lens is held against the gasket by the retainers.   The retainers are probably the weak point of these lights as they crack over time.   One of mine has broken off so I will need to repair it at some point.   Were the car a daily driver this would be more urgent.

The rear gasket is placed against the light housing before it is screwed in.   The housing metal will bend if these screws are over tightened.

The old lights are quite easy to remove.   There is a single screw to remove the frame, and then four screws to remove the light.   There is also an attachment point for the frame that sits at the top that must be removed as well.

From there, the new headlights can be attached and tested.   For those of you who are indecisive, you can have one of each on your cars.

The job is almost complete for me.  I need to repair one mounting point for the lens on the passengers side, and get a new foglight bulb on the drivers side.

W111 headlight restoration is a job that can be tackled at home and does not require special tools.  The process is the same for all related cars such as the W108, W109, W112 etc.

The post W111 Headlight Restoration appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

‘Lichteinheiten’

The standard headlights for these cars were know as  ‘Lichteinheiten’.  This roughly translates as ‘Light Units’.  They combined the dipped beam, main beam, fog light, parking light, night clearance light, and indicators in one unit housed behind a single piece of curved glass.

The photo on the right shows the various components with the lens removed.    From the top is the indicator (behind the orange cover), below that the dipped and main beam, with a tiny bulb for the parking light, just above the main bulb.

Below that is the fog light, and to the right of that the night clearance light which can be left on all night if the car is parked with one wheel on the curb and one on the street as is common in Europe.   Only one side can be illuminated at a time.

These lights are also often known as tombstone lights, one piece lights and in the USA, ‘European’ lights.

The glass lenses can be removed and the reflectors are also replaceable meaning they can be completely refurbished.    There are two gaskets one to attach the light to the car and one to attach the lens.   The picture to the left shows an unrestored light.   These W111 headlights were later restored and put back on the car they came from.  These gaskets are not cheap but important to ensure water does not get in.

In addition, there are two variants of this light, the first used until early 1969, which had glass with a pronounced curve, sometimes known as the ‘bubble’ type, and the second which was much flatter, and used from 1969 to end of production.

The picture below shows the early style on the right and the later style on the left.

These headlights were standard fitment to all these cars, except for American models, and the 300SEL 6.3.   Some local importers did specify the stacked headlights for V8 models as part of their standard order.

The difference between LHD and RHD is in the how the lenses focus the light on the road.   The main part of the headlight is the same.

I restored a set of these headlights to put my 250SE Cabriolet back to original.

Stacked headlights

The other main style are the stacked headlights, which are also known as Americana headlights.    Instead of a single piece of glass, there are two round lights in a housing, and the indicators, fog lamps are separate, although in the same housing.    In the USA version, legislation prevented the indicators being in the same housing, and so ugly separate indicators and side marker lights had to be fitted.   The picture below shows a USA model with the side marker lights and central round indicators where the optional fog lights on rest of world cars would be.    The car below is a 250SE that would have come from the factory with smaller ‘bullet’ style front indicators but was later upgraded to the later style found on 280 models.

These lights were first introduced in all American models.   This was because the USA at the time had archaic legislation dating back to the turn of the century that mandated sealed beam headlights.    If you are not familiar with sealed beams, instead of replacing just the bulb, you replaced the whole round headlight.   Due to the old nature of these, the light output is truly pathetic and sealed beams are basically unsafe.

The other variant on these, was introduced as standard on the 300SEL 6.3, which used the same basic design but had replaceable bulbs, which were later halogens.   These produced the best light of all the headlights on these cars, and could be ordered as an option on the other v8 models as well.   The anemic American lights can also be fairly easily retrofitted to this second style to provide adequate light output.   The photo below shows the stacked headlights with the indicators and parking lights in the same housing.  These style lights are a popular upgrade from the originals on all W108, W109, W111 & W112 models. This car is a 250SE that would have had one piece headlights from the factory and is currently being converted back to the original style.

The photo above shows the same car midway through conversion, contrasting the two styles.   Which one is better is down to personal preference, although I prefer the original type.   The great thing about this conversion is that it is reversible.

The post W108/W109/W111/W112 Mercedes headlight types appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

I had a box with the original headlamps for this car, but they were in a bad way.   I was able to get another used set to see if I make get one good set.    The 2nd set were in fairly good condition, but had the normal wear and tear with perished gaskets (one gasket to hold onto the car, and one to hold the glass on to the headlight unit), and marginal reflectors.    New gaskets and reflectors are available from Mercedes, but they are not cheap.    Luckily MB Spares can get them and they deliver from Canberra.

First step is to remove all the perished gasket material.

Next is to remove the glass so the 2nd gasket is accessible.   This is not normally needed as the bulbs are changed from the rear.   As these gaskets are not cheap or easy to come by, somebody in the past had used some kind of sealant on one headlight.  Luckily it was old and could be removed with a little care.

To remove the glass, there are six holders that swivel around on some kind of rivet.  I used a little penetrating oil to free the, and screwdriver to turn the (using the little slot).  From there the glass can be easily removed and the gasket revealed.   The condition of these gaskets are important as the reflectors will rust if they get wet too often.     With the glass removed, the condition of the reflectors can be ascertained.   Mine were in ok condition, but not great.   The ones on the first set of lights were horrible.   In any case, I will replace them.

With the reflectors inspected, the next step is to review the condition of the glass covers.  I had three pairs of these, a spare and one pair of each set of headlights.   They were very dusty, so a good washing revealed that they were all in good shape.

The surrounds were also cleaned, although they will need some polish to get them to where they need to be.

The post W111 Headlight Upgrade Pt 1 appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

When I moved to Michigan in 2007, I bought a 560SEC.   The car was a bit rough, but Detroit is not a city you can really live in without a car, and it wasn’t expensive.   Being a midwest car, it was already a little rusty, but had been upgraded to the European headlights.  A 560SEC European headlight upgrade is not difficult, but the headlights are expensive.  It was great to get a car with these lights.

After two more Michigan winters and a few people hitting the car in bad weather, I purchased a very nice 560SEC from California to use in the summer, and the original 560SEC became my winter car.   Once I had the new 560SEC, I transferred a couple of the nicer trim pieces from the winter car to the good one.  Having seen how catastrophically bad the US headlights were, I wanted to swap them over.     I did a lot of road trips in the new 560SEC and the US spec headlights are so dim I would consider them seriously dangerous.  The euro lights on the other hand, are what the car was designed for in the first place.

The USA headlights were a product of misguided, protectionist legislation.   That legislation is no longer in effect, but the cars produced during that time all had terrible lighting.

 The crappy car on the right, and the good one on the left.

Left is european, right is USA spec.

The wiring is slightly different, but can be adapted fairly easily.

The difference is fairly apparent with one side done.

The midwestern car was quite rusty

Finished.   Technically the wipers are wrong, but the point is you can actually see where you want to drive.

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