FYI : 1949 and perhaps other years --- Headlight bucket

Hi all,

As part of the restoration of the '49 I just went through the headlight buckets. These are made out of Aluminum with steel brackets in them. They are attached with aluminum rivets.

A couple of the rivet heads had corroded and fell out. I replaced them with new ones. While I was pop-riveting the new ones in, some more of the old rivets has the heads separate and come off.

It looks like the rivets are experiencing electrolysis because of the dissimilar materials. The thing is you cannot see it under the head of the rivet.

Also the brass rivet-ring that holds the ground wire to the case had a lot of corrosion under it against the shell.

All of this can and does cause a ground path issue for the headlights. I cleaned everything good and used some special electrical grease when I put the new wire on. I also plan on running an extra wire from the back side of the brass rivet-ring to the battery ground.

There is just no way that a good ground path can be had with the stock design. When everything is new and good it would be so-so. In a couple of years it will go downhill.

Since people complain about headlights on 6 volt cars, I suggest that people look hard at the bucket design and the ground path from it back to the battery/generator system.

I counted and the ground path has to pass through at least SIX different fasteners to get to the frame and engine block and into the cables for the generator/battery. That does not include the dash or foot switch connections or any bulkhead connection. That is just on the ground side.

I need a new positive ground cable made up and I am going to have them do it with two pigtails. One of which will go direct to the headlights ground wire.

Best, James