Jeremy's 2Fifty Cal story begins....

[seriph]

Look at thatbsmooooooth bastard DARING to lean on that breathtaking £10,000,000 beauty!

Must be such an incredible delight to own.

[seriph]

Definitely worthy of throwing some cash at a specialist photographer I reckon. It’s such a WOW result.

[Jez]

So chuffed this weekend!

[MADMAN]

Well done Jez, but as I said to you, I expecred you to get car of the show
MADMAN

[Jez]

Well that's weird!!!

It was such a gorgeous night last night with a beautiful sunset, so I decided to go out for a top down drive in the dusk.

First time I have ever driven the car at night, so its the first time I've used the lights. Set off down the road and oncoming cars were flashing me. It turns out that my dipped headlights and full beam are reversed, so when I have the dipped lights on, its full beam, and when I switch to full beam it turns on the dipped lights (plus full beam)!

I must have screwed up the wiring. Just checking it today and my 'labels' are correct in that I labelled the main beam/dipped beam on the Z3 when I disconnected them.

I followed Percy's lead when he figured out the wires on the new headlights.....

"Finally got the headlight wiring sorted;

The Red wire from the supplied headlight unit is the sidelight and connects to one wire on the Z3 sidelight

The black wire and the blue/white wire attach to the Z3 dip headlight wiring

The blue wire connects to one of the wires on the Z3 halogen headlight"

Except there was one minor difference. I have Blue/white, Black, Red and Blue/Red. So I am guessing my lights are wired differently to Percy's (possibly a different supplier/make?) and so perhaps my Blue/White is actually the main beam, and the Blue/Red is the dipped.

I'm going to swap them over and see what happens.

I guess I will have to get my lights re-aligned because they were obviously set up with full beam on rather than dipped.

Hey-ho, the joys of car building.......

[Sir Percival]

I can only agree....try swopping them over....mine were a real pain, but got there in the end by trying different combinations.

I'm surprised they didn't mention anything about it on the MOT?

[firefife]

Had the same happen to me driving back from Tatton Park, everyone flashing me. When I got home I put the beams against the garage doors & they were reversed.
If the dipped lights were on then they were full beam, put on full beam & dip comes on - but with full beam.
I left last weekend's show early to beat the dark & had side lights on before we got home. I tried holding the flash on with just the side lights & no one flashed so wires are connected wrong. Thought it was just me but seeing two others makes sense that new lights wire colours are wrong, will be looking at it on Monday, a couple of other jobs to sort by the end of next week before we go to Le Mans.

[Jez]

I swapped them over and it seems to be correct now.

I can only agree....try swopping them over....mine were a real pain, but got there in the end by trying different combinations.

I'm surprised they didn't mention anything about it on the MOT?

I am too. I have been looking on-line to see if the lights are aligned on dipped beam or full. No-one mentions it, so I assume it is dipped. If that's the case, then my lights are probably adjusted to point too low........I will pop down to my local garage and get them re-checked.

[Jez]

Went back to my local garage that did the MOT to get the headlights re-aligned. Told him that I'd screwed up the wiring on the headlights. He said 'yes I figured that out so I adjusted for the dipped beam anyway, but I forgot to tell you about it!'
Anyway, we checked them again and just had to tweak them slightly.
All good now. 😉

[Furrari]

Headlights are usually aligned with dip beam set to 1/2 to 1 degree down.

[Jez]

Maybe. But you still need some references to adjust them to.

[Jez]

I finally decided to tackle the headlamp bezels and get rid of the crappy plastic chrome ones That have been on all summer. I had bought a set of polished stainless steel ones back in April, but because they were a difficult thing to fit I decided to wait.
The plastic chrome ones are already starting to fall apart, so I thought long and hard about how to fit the stainless ones. Many sleepless nights thinking about the best way to fit.
First I decided I did not like the black rubber edge trim that was supplied, so I sourced some translucent silicone edge trim, which is claimed to be non-yellowing, so I thought that might look better. Easy to replace every couple of years if necessary.
Next I looked at the supplied brackets, and decided that they were too big and visible once the stainless bezels were fitted, so they needed to be reshaped and much smaller. I also looked at the genuine Ferrari 250 and noticed that the bezel mounts are painted in body colour (as they are part of the bodywork) so I thought, that’s what I will do too.
The supplied bezels are supposed to be fitted with self-tapping screws into the brackets, but I did not like that idea either, so I wanted to use dome head machine screws. This means I need a threaded M5 bracket, but the brackets were only 1mm thick, so cannot be tapped.
So I thought I would ‘JB Weld’ some M5 flange nuts under the brackets so I could screw the dome heads in.
So after all these decisions I started to trial fit the stainless bezels to the shape so I could work out where to fix the brackets. The stainless MUST have the protective edge rubber on when you do this, because there’s a high risk of damaging paint with the sharp edges of the stainless. The bezels needed quite a lot of bending and ‘stretching’ (I know you can’t really stretch stainless, but it feels like you are doing) to get them to the right curvature, and even then they are close but not perfect.
Once that was done I could mark where the brackets should go before drilling the bodywork for them. Measured and re-measured this 4 times, just to be sure.
Then I very carefully drilled the holes for the brackets (that took a lot of courage taking a drill to my shiny bodywork!!) and then fitted the brackets. All were flat and full size at this time. Next I removed each bracket, and bent it slightly to match the curvature of the Perspex and bezel so that there was only a 5mm gap between the stainless and the bracket. Once I was happy with all the bends, I then held the stainless bezel in place and marked where the holes needed to be on the brackets. I was very careful that the bezel was in exactly the right place all around before marking any hole points.

[Jez]

Then the brackets came off again, and the holes were punched and drilled. I was using M5 screws so I drilled a slightly larger hole in the bracket (5.5mm) so that it would be easier to line up the nuts.
Once all the holes were drilled I refitted the brackets again, then I fastened the bezel in place with the screws and flange nuts to check for fit. When I was happy with that I then marked the brackets with how much to trim off so they would not be visible under the bezel tabs. I shaped the brackets into little ‘plectrum’ shapes, so that they got narrower towards the inside of the dome, and would not stick out anywhere beyond the bezel tabs.
Once I was happy with the shape, I refitted the brackets and test fitted the bezels again. Happy with that, I then set about ‘welding’ the flange nuts under the bracket hole with JB Weld. I cleaned up the brackets and the nuts before applying the epoxy glue.

[Jez]

I let the glue set overnight, then I cleaned them all up again and set about painting them, first with two coats of etch primer, followed by four coats of body paint (I got a spray can off the internet colour matched to my car Rosso Barchetta 312).
Once all the brackets were nicely painted and dry (three days later) I fitted them back on the car.
Then I took the Perspex domes and offered them up to the light aperture. Of course they would not fit as they did before because the brackets were there now, so I had to trim a little out where each bracket sits. Then the holes did not line up exactly, so they were enlarged a little to make them line up (the stainless bezels and original plastic bezels are not exactly the same).

[Furrari]

I may be teaching my Grandmother to suck eggs here but here’s a bit of advise when fitting headlight bezels.

We usually drill a clearance hole for the screw thread and then a countersink/bevel to take the head of the screw.  This gives a sharp angle where the countersink and the clearance hole meet.   Unfortunately the corresponding screw will rerely have a corresponding sharp corner.  To save risking cracking the Perspex just round of the corner of the hole so it clears the screw.

I’ve not cracked a cover ( there is still time) but I have seen it done so I was able to do it when I was fitting covers to my GTM.