Where are you guys buying your horn grill lights?

EarlyPorsche · 01-30-2007, 09:52 AM

Our host does not carry horn grill chrome lights for the early 911/912 crowd. Where are you guys getting them? I don't care if its original or not, I just want to install some because my horn grills aren't the best looking things so I figured why not put some lights on them. Actually its just one sorta bad one but light will take attention away from them in a good way.

karlusmagnus · 01-30-2007, 10:46 AM

Try here
Tom (scylla6) is the man in question.
I bought a set and am very happy with them.
If you want factory original, try over on early911sregistry.com, but these do the job for me, and Tom is a nice guy, with some fabulous cars in fabulous colors.
I saw his signal yellow at the greenwich concours last year and it was gordeous.

Karl.

coldstart · 01-30-2007, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by EarlyPorsche
Our host does not carry horn grill chrome lights for the early 911/912 crowd. Where are you guys getting them? I don't care if its original or not, I just want to install some because my horn grills aren't the best looking things so I figured why not put some lights on them. Actually its just one sorta bad one but light will take attention away from them in a good way.

I bought a set from Tom too. Very nice but a little pricey...

boxster03 · 01-30-2007, 01:54 PM

Original Hella, Cibie, Marchals can set you back big bucks a grand and more so Tom's are a nice alternative

karlusmagnus · 01-30-2007, 03:13 PM

For $110, it doesn't seem so bad.
The alternatives, as boxster03 mentioned, are pretty, pretty pricey.
Our host sells fog lamps for $300 odd dollars. I know comparing apples to oranges, but $110 shipped ain;t so outrageous, imho. teho.

Karl.

Soterik · Soterik's Garage

A great alternative is the Cibie Tango. It's the correct size as the original horn grill lights, and it has great optics. Prices vary, but I've seen them for around $125 ea. The come in chrome or black body, and fog or driving. The driving is the best in my opinion....and you can run a 100 watt bulb in them!

http://www.alfacybersite.com/ACSCibCt.html

regards,
Eric
Horn grill light maniac, sorry none for sale.

cak · 01-30-2007, 06:45 PM

Daniel Stern has the Tangos, choose black or chrome.

But that still leaves the issue of how to mount the suckers if all you have is the stock grilles...

scylla6 · 02-03-2007, 11:09 AM

Karl, boxster, coldstart, thanks so much for the kind words. I really like these lights myself and have them on several of my cars. It all started with my blue 72S. That one had the original lights on it and I liked them so much I just had to get more. Well, I'm sure you know what the originals go for. It would have been hard to justify that type of expense several times. Anyway thats how we got here. Glad to hear you guys like them.
And Karl I'll see you hopefully at the next Greenwich Concours. I'm pretty sure I'll be bringing something there.
Tom

cak · 08:58 AM

I, too, bought a set of lights from Tom. I'm mounting on a 73, so the shiny mounting hardware looks a little off against black horn grilles.

I'm going to paint the hardware, but I've also ordered a set of repro grilles to cut up. I'd like to try to reproduce, or at least honor, the factory mounting style. There are good photos and bracket drawings here:

early cars and driving lights

but it's hard to judge the scale of the grille modification.

If you have factory grilles, could you please post a closeup photo of one, with a ruler? The ideal thing would be to show it mounted on the car with the bracket visible, but the lamp itself off.

Thanks!

karlusmagnus · 02-20-2007, 09:03 AM

Chris, I will try to take some shots at the weekend, as the car is in storage for the winter.

From my experience, as my car is a 73, it has black plastic grills. Not really great to mount the lights on (the plastic).
I got some chrome grills and had them mounted on that. My mechanic said to me, something of the order that if I wanted to paint my grills black (instead of the chrome) I would have to be careful in running the wires ... i'm no electrician, so it went over my head ...
anyway, i ended up not painting the fgrills black, because i found out somewhere that the factory used chrome grills for mounting lights in 73 as well in certain cases.
As usual with porsche, if they had old pieces lying around, they used them.
Perhaps others from the driving lights police will correct me, but that is why i stayed with the chrome.

I'll post next week some pics.

Karl.

cak · 02-20-2007, 09:13 AM

Thanks Karl. These lights are immediately obviously not Hellas, so they're already "wrong". I'm not worried about that so much.

Tom says that he's mounted on the plastic grilles with no problem. I don't like the possibility of damaging the originals, so since the repros are so cheap, I'm buying a pair for that.

And, since I'm an idiot, I'm going to cut them up and try to build brackets, instead of just finishing the project and getting on to the next thing

I also have a round relay and base - ouch! - on order, to duplicate the factory wiring. I will probably drop back to 55W bulbs from the supplied 100W units in deference to the factory's thin wires and 16A fuse - 200/13.8 = 14.5 which seems a little close to the limit. But maybe I'll try it with 100s first anyway, just to see how bad the voltage drop is!

donporfi · 02-20-2007, 09:23 AM

karlusmagnus
thru the grill fog lights are not mounted on the grilles, the lights are mounted to a bracket that bolts to the battery boxes. If you use original type brackets you need to cut the grilles.

cak · 02-20-2007, 09:27 AM

I think that Karl is talking about Tom's lights, which clamp directly to the horn grilles, not the factory lights. The horn grille takes the entire weight/vibration in Tom's system.

donporfi · 02-20-2007, 09:35 AM

Ooops, sorry.

cak · 05:28 PM

This topic seems to be in air today. Check out

Fog/Driving Light Opinions and Pictures For Early Cars Please

which has several links inside showing lighting and grille alternatives. In particular, see

http://www.early911sregistry.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6861

for a dimensioned drawing of the factory bracket.

As Pelican donporfi points out, the factory bracket doesn't allow left/right adjustment. That doesn't matter a lot for fogs, which cast a wide and short beam, but it does matter a lot for driving lenses and especially pencil spots (if you're mounting, say, Oscars with a pencil on the driver's side and a driving beam on the co-driver's side, which is a combo I love but will be too big on a 911

)

He prefers a bracket that allows a post mount, and shows it here

For the folks looking for Cibie or Marchal hood lights.

with dimensions, along with photos of a factory-sized lamp mounted one one side and an Oscar on the other, so you can appreciate the size difference.

My current plan is to build a version of that bracket, with a shorter extension mounted slightly higher, so I can tuck the lamp back into the grille after cutting.

I'm going to do that with Tom's lights, since I've got them, which means that the grille cuts will have to be different than the factory's (the mounting base is wider, I'll be using donporfi's bracket, and so on).

[Warning thread drift!]

Oscars are huge, and I think that they will spoil the look of the front of the car. They also have to stick out pretty far to allow clearance for the "bowl". If someone wants a huge light, consider the Oscar+, which has a flat back.

daepp · 02-20-2007, 11:59 AM

Where are all of you getting the 12V source for the lights? I am assuming you add a relay and use the original fog light circuit to trigger said relay, but how about the 12V source?

cak · 12:21 PM

Quote:

Where are all of you getting the 12V source for the lights? I am assuming you add a relay and use the original fog light circuit to trigger said relay, but how about the 12V source?

I'm adding driving lights, not fog lights, so I don't care about a dash switch. I'm planning to mount a round relay in the second slot of the relay panel, where the factory fog relay would have gone. The coil lead (86) goes to the high beam fuse, the output (87) goes to the "fog light" fuse, which lets me use the (probably undersized) factory wiring that already goes out through the wheel well connector.

But I didn't answer your question, did I? I'm going to run a new red wire (10AWG, probably) out to the battery and connect it to the relay's source (30) terminal. I need to do this anyway for the Marcus Sucro headlight relay kit. I haven't yet decided just how to hook all those wires together; I'd like to find a small terminal block package that I can mount in the area to distribute 12V, but I haven't found the right thing yet.

http://www.madelectrical.com/catalog/cn-1.shtml has some promise, but I'm not sure it's the right thing.

Scott at Pelican Parts · Scott at Pelican Parts's Garage

FYI, Pelican has a complete offering of reproduction metal horn grilles now.

http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/shopcart/911E/POR_911E_BDYext_pg6.htm#item19

scylla6 · 02-20-2007, 03:55 PM

Hi all, If anyone wants a set of these repro lights I do have some. They come complete with custom mounts, lights, wiring and switch, $110 shipped. Here's a pic of them on my 73 911s. Please email if interested. They do look and work well. I've got them on several of my cars. Please email if interested. Thanks
Tom
email; scylla66@yahoo.com

PS: Scott, please try to bring out the cut out horn grills. I know we'd all like to buy some.