Simple dumb restofab project…

No AI was used :winking_face_with_tongue:

Here daylight running lamps (DRLs) have been required by law on all new cars since about 2014. Today slick LED units are integrated into the design of the front of pretty much every car, they’re now an essential part of the “design language” of the brand.

Older cars which are not DRL-equipped here are supposed to drive with their headlights on all the time. I love the popup headlights on my ‘74 914, but I still prefer to drive with them down during the daytime. The European models of these cars came with the yellow front turn signal lenses having a small clear “position” (parking) light section with a separate bulb - which come on with the first light switch position. The taillights come on at this position as well. The original bulbs are little 5-watt bayonet mount incandescents which put out maybe 50 lumens max.

I had an idea to adapt the front position lights as DRL’s and still have the car look completely stock. With a little bit of rewiring – connecting the position lights to +12V ignition-on instead of the headlight switch - plus some brighter LED bulbs, I would have some cool DRL’s.

I began my investigation by removing the bulbs that were in there – tried to anyway, one of them was corroded stuck. in pulling the whole assembly out to see why the bulb was stuck and I saw that the original base contacts of the bulbs were apparently long gone and someone had hacked (and I mean hacked) together new contacts made from some brass spade connectors.

Needless to say, I did not like how they looked. Replacing the 50-year-old nylon bulb sockets was out of the question - they are unobtanium now, as are the entire OEM die-cast metal light “bucket” assemblies. All that is available today new are aftermarket repros in chromed plastic at a few hundred $ a pop.

My OEM lamp “buckets” are actually in very good condition, so I decided to preserve the original nylon lampholder part and just make a better base contact. Rhino and 3D printing to the rescue.

Took a few design iterations to get the shape fitting just the way I wanted, fortunately it’s a 30 minute 3D print for each run. Some brass shim stock for the contact and a 6mm compression spring behind it to ensure good contact and maintain the bulb firmly in the bayonet.

Hopefully the light sockets are now good to go for another 50 years… :smiley:

Fortunately for us UK drivers, the legislation here specifically says we don’t have to do this. :slightly_smiling_face:

What you have done would however be illegal here. All vehicle light covers have to be type approval E-marked. This marking is very specific: you can’t use, say, a tail light cover on a brake light, even if they are the exact same size and colour and the brake light has a brighter bulb per the spec (if I sound bitter about this, it is with good reason…). Any way, you have installed DRLs that do not have the embossed RL mark and that would be a no-no in the UK.

Nice project.

Yeah, I’m not sure it’s legal here either, although it does serve the correct purpose. It only requires changing a couple of connections under the dash to put it back to original. I’m even considering putting in a switch.

The lenses are either original Hella parts or perfect copies with the proper E-marking for the time period, of course never intended for DRL use.

It’s also illegal here to change out the original halogen H4 headlight bulbs for LEDS currently.