Kris,
Most of us share the fear of being attacked by a "Sport Ute" and think
that Sport Brute would be a more accurate name for the immense beasts.
There have been different tail light lenses used on MGBs, at different
times and in different markets. Some had the turn signal amber. All that
you would have to do to get amber signals is to find a lens with the
amber segment. You might have to rearrange the lightbulbs in the
assembly, but they just plug in.
A simple modification that will make your brake lights brighter is to
add another socket with bulb to the light fixture. The tail light
assembly has three sections, with lights in the top two and a flat chrome
area in the bottom third. Installing an additional socket in the flat
chrome area will allow you to add another tail-light filament and another
brake-light filament back there. Requires that a 1" diameter hole be cut
in the plate behind the chrome piece, but that's easy to do. Since the
new light is not in a reflector, the light will spread out within the
plastic lens and make the back of the car much more visible from the rear
and from the side.
This doesn't do anything for the turn signal brightness, since that's a
separate bulb. You could hook up another bulb to that, but doing so would
require a different flasher unit.
This discussion came up a few months back. One of the listers, who is
a professor of ergonomics at Embry-Riddle (sp?), noted that one's eye
responds better to a light going from dark to light than it does from on
to bright. His suggestion is that one would want to make the second
light a brake light only, not a combined tail and brake light. Example of
this is the third brake light found on cars since 1985 or so.
So it's pretty easy to brighten the corners of your car.
I'm happy to read that you seem to be OK. Hope that the damage to the
car is not significant. I got rear-ended twice in my rubber bumper '75
before I added the lights. Both times, I might add, I was stopped at one
of those red, octagonal signs often found at intersections, the signs
with the four-letter word.
Bob
On Tue, 3 Nov 1998 18:06:05 -0500 (EST) krisn@iname.com writes:
>(Apologies if this appears twice--I forgot that I'm subscribed from a
>different address than where I read mail, so I don't think this made
>it through.)
>
>I'm not serious about mounting a flashing amber light to my MG, of
>course, it just occurred to me after being struck from behind by some
>Bronco-like thing while stopped to wait for a car to turn left. Pretty
>awful sound--and I can't say I enjoyed seeing in my mirror those
>really tall headlights come over the top of my 77 B.
>
>Fortunately, he was just low enough to catch my bumper and I guess I'm
>lucky to have a rubber-bumpered MG.
>
>Doesn't look TOO terrible (though any damage to my poor car is
>terrible to me), but he definitely caused some damage. The bumper is
>now no longer set away from the backend--the body's caved in a smidge
>and my trunk is difficult to open/close because it hits the license
>plate frame now. The body also seems to have buckled slightly above
>the passenger's rear wheel.
>
>Just needed to share, I guess! Anyone have any ideas on how much this
>will cost to fix? Wild guesses (I know you can't really tell without a
>close inspection) welcome. His insurance will cover it (I hope), but I
>still have to get it done. Grr.
>
>So much for fixin' up my Z-S carb--that WAS my weekend project!
>
>I must admit I feel a bit safer now, in an odd way--he hit pretty
>hard, and everybody was ok (except minor neck soreness...) and the
>car's pretty ok.
>
>Now if I could just figure out a way for everyone to SEE me! Thus, the
>question of amber flashing lights. On a roll bar, maybe...? ;)
>
>Regards,
>Kris
>--
>kristopher nelson (krisn@iname.com/krisn@eskimo.com)
>'92 Trek / '77 MGB
>
>
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