Hi,

Contuining the XL headlamp upgrade. The bulbs on the left look more like a factory bulb and not so "clear glass" look.

However since these bulbs are pricy, I bought two sets for both '66s Fords and decided to use the clear glass ones in the '68 Ford XL because the doors hide them when the headlights are off. Next step, the disassembly of the '68 hide-a-way headlamps and producing a good set.

For the door stops I found a pretty good size bumper pad that's larger than the original. This is the part number from Steele in the picture. You will have to enlarge the hole in the bracket to 1/4" for the larger bumpers.

I polished the stainless retainer rings, and powder coated the lamp buckets and little brackets. I'll use mostly stainless hardware. Any odd hardware gets blackened chemically then painted with black epoxy paint.

In order to strip and paint the 3 springs in each headlamp assembly, I fabricated this this simple holder. It's a chunk of generic low carbon steel bar with 1/8" hardened dowel pins where the springs can be held slightly open to clean and paint them.

For the door mini-drive rod, I drilled out the rivets and powder coated all the metal parts and cleaned the fiber coupling.

This is the drivers side nearly complete and ready for assembly.

The lamp buckets are stamped Left High, Left Low, Right High and Right Low.

These are the clear 140/100 watt bulbs — the same bulb we installed in our 1979 Dodge truck.