Replacement Cibie lights...

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Steve Meltzer
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Replacement Cibie lights...

Post by Steve Meltzer »

Almost exactly a year ago, I bought two Cibie (H4) lights from Dan Stern. Within a few months, I noted that one of the lenses was cracked, odd I thought, esp. since the car is rarely driven and almost never at night. I replaced it with a another lamp, the bulb being fine. Yesterday, while I was fooling around in my garage, I saw that the other lamp had a large crack in it. At this point, crappy materials and workmanship are all I can think of as an explanation; again the bulb is fine (stock H4 bulb, can't remember brand). Anyone have this experinece? Any thoughts. thanx steve
steve meltzer,
"I've spent all of my money on wine, a beautiful woman, and stunning cars. Then, squandered the rest."
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Art S.
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Post by Art S. »

Steve,

Are you sure the lights fit in the buckets correctly? My guess is there is something applying stress to the glass.

If it really is a defect; I've never had any problems with my Carellos and the Marchals are also very good. I have some spare ampliluxes if you decide to switch.

Regards,

Art S.
1965 330 2+2 series 2 7919
Steve Meltzer
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Post by Steve Meltzer »

Art, As far as I know they fit fine. No sweat putting them in and they're not too tight, or, at least, I don't think so. Jeez I've used Cibies in a number of 911s over the years, and an Audi, as well, never had this problem. thanx s
steve meltzer,
"I've spent all of my money on wine, a beautiful woman, and stunning cars. Then, squandered the rest."
whturner
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Post by whturner »

Hi Steve:

I have the same experience with one of the 2 Cibie's I just installed. There may be a bad batch. I am going to see if I can identify the origin of the crack(s).

Cheers
Warren
330 GT Series II sn 10069
Steve Meltzer
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Post by Steve Meltzer »

Very interesting....did yoiu get them from Stern? thanx steve
steve meltzer,
"I've spent all of my money on wine, a beautiful woman, and stunning cars. Then, squandered the rest."
whturner
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Cibie Breakage

Post by whturner »

Hi Steve

I got mine from Aardvark international:

http://www.talbotco.com/e-code_lamps.htm

I spoke with him - he has seen no trend in breaking lamps - but conceded that three lamps, installed by guys who have installed many, is a bit of a puzzle.

When I take mine out, I will see where the cracks originated, if I can. I am in no way expert in this, however.

Cheers
Warren
330 GT Series II sn 10069
Scheinwerfermann
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Post by Scheinwerfermann »

Greetings all. Stern here. I want to throw a little light on the subject. Part of the text below is what I sent to Mr. Meltzer in response to his mail a few days ago.

Lens cracking without rock impact is almost always a result of concentrated stress on the lens edge via small bends in the lamp retainer ring. The bends that cause this can be very difficult to see or even feel with the fingers. Very close examination is necessary. Little bends accumulate over the years, pebble hits the ring and bends it a little, a dozen removals and replacements, thermal cycling...keep in mind, that ring might hit 200°F on a hot sunny day, might hit -20°F or colder in winter, water can get in and freeze, warping the ring a little...times however many years the thing has existed. Then, there's always the possibility of the pressure coming in from the back. Difficult though it seems to explain, I have seen buckets with slightly bent or otherwise distorted index lug slots. These are the three slots around the bucket's edge where the lamp's three lugs sit. If those slots are distorted, it can cause the lamp rim to be squeezed with excessive force when even a nice, straight retainer ring is secured.

A mismatched bucket and ring is a possibility, but not a very likely one; generally in that case the ring won't go on at all. That said, even "foolproof" designs can be hamfisted into a make-fit situation. I see a lot of cars running around at night with H4 bulbs improperly clocked, even though the tabs are set up such that they "can't" be installed except in the correct position.

Assuming good, straight and undistorted bucket slots, I have had good results in the past — yes, one of my cars "ate" a few headlamps in this manner before I twigged to what was causing it — by carefully straightening out the ring and lining it with medium-soft weatherstrip foam (round cross section, from the hardware or home store) to cushion the lamp.

The Cibié 7" lamp has been on the market for a great many years, and the design, materials and construction remain unchanged. There hasn't been a transient or constant problem with lens cracking. If there were, and I didn't squawk about it and switch my preference to something else, my reputation would not be good. Different lamps are constructed differently; a distorted retainer ring and/or bucket that works fine with one design can crack another. I wish the Carello 7" H4 unit were still in production; it was a very good performer with a lens/reflector interface that was almost completely proof against distorted buckets and rings. Unfortunately, when Bosch and Magneti-Marelli merged their vehicle lighting operations, they chose to cancel the Carello design and keep the Bosch design, which is cheaper to make. The Hella and Bosch units are a little less demanding of straight buckets and rings compared to the Cibiés, but output is significantly less than the Cibiés. There are dozens of brands of junk lamps from the usual-suspect parts of the world, some of which, amongst their few redeeming factors, are tolerant of bucket/ring imperfections, but that's largely irrelevant given such lamps' abysmal performance.

Another potential cause of cracking without impact is thermal stress, which is most often caused by running very hot overwattage bulbs under extreme conditions (sitting for long periods with the lamps on and no air moving over them, putting adhesive films on the lenses in an effort to guard against impact but trapping considerably more heat at the lens, shocking very hot lenses with cold water...). Yet another cause of cracking is the installation of certain kinds of wire-mesh "impact guards" which sandwich between the lamp and its retainer ring, practically guaranteeing a crack between two or more of the many resultant points of localised stress on the lens edge.

And of course, it bears remembering that rocks don't always leave obvious bull's-eye evidence when they crack lenses. Unfortunately, the lower a headlamp (any headlamp) is mounted, the more prone it is to impact damage.

Hope this helps.

DS
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tyang
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Post by tyang »

welcome aboard Scheinwerfermann. Thanks for the thorough response.

Tom
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Steve Meltzer
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Post by Steve Meltzer »

Somehow, I didn't get that expert response, but certainly welcome it. Not sure what I'm gonna do now, with both lenses broken. ?? back to the ones I had from the FLAPS. s
steve meltzer,
"I've spent all of my money on wine, a beautiful woman, and stunning cars. Then, squandered the rest."
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