Headlight brackets- Potmetal or Alu?

One of my headlight support brackets is broken pretty bad... Just curious if these are weldable aluminum or pot metal and not salvageable

It's some kind of crappy aluminum. I welded a couple but it takes a lot of grinding and weld passes for a sturdy fix. It's very contaminated and will make an ugly weld

I remember my '72 after hitting that damn Florida deer, about the size of a German Shepard....it took out both of my headlights.....and busted up one of the frames BAD.....but I had the pieces, the rest of the doors and surrounds were gone....lost one of the hinge pieces on the right side...drove home with one light on the driver's side....


my TIG welding pro welder managed to weld the bracket with no sweat...

but he does that shit every day....

but a new door was more expensive than a set of fixed lights from Ecklers

so that is the way I went, never liked operating lights anyway, and as we know, vacuum sux.....

:crap::crylol:

Twin_Turbo said:

It's some kind of crappy aluminum. I welded a couple but it takes a lot of grinding and weld passes for a sturdy fix. It's very contaminated and will make an ugly weld

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Damn... No wonder people want crazy money for non broken ones... Thanks for the info :thumbs:

vette427sbc said:

Twin_Turbo said:

It's some kind of crappy aluminum. I welded a couple but it takes a lot of grinding and weld passes for a sturdy fix. It's very contaminated and will make an ugly weld

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Damn... No wonder people want crazy money for non broken ones... Thanks for the info :thumbs:

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I"m saying the RIGHT guy, maybe plus a bit of luck can TIG that....

I had the bracket fixed....aluminum casting, he treated it as....but with a missing leg off pass side lid, it was scrap....so the whole damn mess went....

but it's still possible to weld that damn casting.....


:crutches:

Correct. The head light door castings and the and windshield wiper door for early C3's were not traditional pot metal. They had a lot of aluminum in them.

I broke one of mine in a wreck. Didn't have a way of welding it at the time, so I used some 1/8" aluminum from hardware store as a backing plate and bolted it back together. It's not a pretty fix, but no one sees it anyway .... and it saved me from having to buy another one of those crappy brackets.

I'd call one of the breakers out there that specialize in C3s. It's probably cheaper to buy a good replacement than fix a broken part made of crappy metal. I'm usually in the "fix everything" camp, but sometimes it's just not practical.

Hey guys show me a picture of the diecast item. If there is enough interest to break even I'll build the tooling and sell you a good alum. casting.

There are 2 different castings, 68-74 and 75-82 IIRC. Realistically you would have to make 4 castings (left and right, early and late)
Id buy one if they were ready now, but Im just going to find another less crappy one than I already have.

Also, I pulled out the passenger side one yesterday... someone had already welded it in multiple places. Looks like they were able to get some decent welds though

Sent it out to a good local welder/fabricator (guy that did my cage) He confirmed that it was certainly not a very "clean" aluminum but he was able to get some decent welds. He did 2 or 3 passes on each section. $50 is better than the $200+ for another used one!

Twin_Turbo said:

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Any guess on how much that piece weighs?

advancedtooling said:

Hey guys show me a picture of the diecast item. If there is enough interest to break even I'll build the tooling and sell you a good alum. casting.

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I dont think that part is a die cast. I think it's a permanent mold casting or some kind of take apart mold with no ejection.

vette427sbc said:

Sent it out to a good local welder/fabricator (guy that did my cage) He confirmed that it was certainly not a very "clean" aluminum but he was able to get some decent welds. He did 2 or 3 passes on each section. $50 is better than the $200+ for another used one!

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Nice lookin welds!

69427 said:

Twin_Turbo said:

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Any guess on how much that piece weighs?

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Light enough to not bother messing with it... Everyone has always made it seem like these things are boat anchors. They are actually rather light. I crossed them off my list of "parts to make lighter" because A) they are already weak, so speed holes werent an option, and B) Im not sure what other material you could make these out of that would be lighter with similar strength. Carbon Fiber maybe??
My guess is they weigh 3 lbs each.

vette427sbc said:

69427 said:

Twin_Turbo said:

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Any guess on how much that piece weighs?

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Light enough to not bother messing with it... Everyone has always made it seem like these things are boat anchors. They are actually rather light. I crossed them off my list of "parts to make lighter" because A) they are already weak, so speed holes werent an option, and B) Im not sure what other material you could make these out of that would be lighter with similar strength. Carbon Fiber maybe??
My guess is they weigh 3 lbs each.

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Close enough. Thanks.

I will go out and find the brackets off my 81 this weekend. They very well could be perm mold castings. I build several of those each year but they are not cheap. I was thinking green sand in the beginning but after looking at the picture it seems to have a wicked parting. Does anybody have a surface or solid model on one of these? It may be easier to machine them out of 6061.

Okay I walked out and looked at the castings. I didn't do a scratch test but it appears that the casting is either diecast or a low pressure permanent mold casting. The ribs are so thin that a gravity fed perm mold would never fill out. It will not fill out in green sand casting neither. The tooling would be so expensive to cast these parts I could never get my investment back. We could make the casting thicker and pour it either in sand or gravity fed perm mold but then it weighs a lot more than the originals. Are there any other castings anybody needs?

I looked again also. They are die cast. I can see the ejector bosses on them. I wonder where the tooling for those went. That had to be a chunk. I guess they went into limited replacement part inventory and then were scrapped.