"BIG FOOT 32"

or 

2006_03

or

"Lighting"

 

After I had flooded the additional lights whilst an off-road tour in 2005 (please refer as well to Saverne-page picture 16 & 17), I now wanted to create a permanent solution.

Luckily I got hold of some fog-lights from former GDR-Army trucks ( … not everything was bad in those days! …), but the problem how to fix it remained. Underneath the bumper was never a good solution because of the risk of getting damaged whilst being off-road and minimizing the ramp angle. And mounting inside the bumper seemed to be nearly impossible because parts of the chassis were in the way. Finally I tried it and made a small cut with the Dremel drill. It wasn’t an easy job for the small machine by 3 mm steel thickness and a radius of 40 cm. But it was the only option for a fine cut – I needed to be able to re-weld the part if the proposed location would not fit!

 

 

The first fitting-test showed positive results but some modifications were still necessary.

 

 

The edge of the cut was covered with an edging strip.

 

With the original fitting only a pan and tilt was achievable. The previous ones had a full 3-D adjustment facility because of a bowl-kind fixture. So I removed the fixing from the old fog lights, gave them a round shape on the rear to fit to the bowl of the housing and then fixed it. On the right housing the tube for the cable was in conflict with the chassis frame. So here I needed to replace it to the other side. The old one was closed with a big screw and seal.

 

 

After the right side was finished I started with the left, which now went much quicker. The bumpers were de-rusted, sanded and sprayed in dull-black. On the picture you see the „new“ rear side and the cabling through a hose to the reflectors rear side. Because the hose is put up at the front no more water  can get in.

 

 

The shock came when I tried to fix the left bumper! A big, solid collection of cabling was exactly located behind the hole. So this needed to be relocated to be out of the way and now enough space is available for the housing (here still the original position),

 

 

Finally the headlights were moved up to be out of reach of water and the risk of getting damaged. So another grinding-action was necessary. The first fitting test was positiv.

 

 

This photo shows the final look of the front grill. A metal strip was applied to the one end of the grill stripes, plus an edging strip and of course everything already sprayed.

 

 

This shows the metal fixings for the front lights welded to the front-plate. Furthermore it shows the "cabling in the hose" for the fog-lights.

 

 

Unfrotunately the left head-light was now located directly in front of the filling-station for the start-support fluid. So this needed to be moved more to teh left which required a prolongation of the hoses. (Left arrow = original position // Right arrow = future position // arrow from bottom = filling station for start-support fluid)

 

 

And this is how the new front is looking like now!