Shedding lights.

This is a somewhat delayed commentary on the headlights. At the time it seemed like a rabbit hole and so I parked it until I had time to think about it.

The wiring on the headlights has been past it for sometime and indeed I had had to effect temporary repairs to get it through the last MOT test. When do this I noticed that the lights had a small additional bulb fitting. I didn’t have time to really think about this as I had to get the car to the tester.

Thoughts of this extra bulb stayed in the back of my mind until the strip down of the lights and me noticing that they are pretty crap even for BL in the 1980s. I can’t believe I had missed the fact that these are ‘AUTOPAL’.

Before even checking the brand I did reach the conclusion that the military probably didn’t spec city lights for these vehicles. Even the most profligate and incompetent MOD procurement chap would realise that it was not the done thing to leave the side lights on and require a little extra glow from the headlamps when parking up in a combat theatre. Although I do have an image of a man with a pipe saying ‘Don’t want those damned tanks taking off our wing mirrors old chap’ somewhere in Whitehall.

Now I get why someone would have replaced the headlamps – H4 bulbs are somewhat easier to get hold of than prefocus – but seriously why not Lucas or Wipac? Needless to say they are being replaced. I’ll take a picture when they arrive but let’s be clear; I didn’t spend the 1,500 quid that a pair is on eBay for!

In other news I wrote a supplier an actual paper letter today and I liked it!!