My Lucas lights and pedestal

[erselt]

I've been looking at photos of different GT/CS and looking at my front grille area and I notice some differences. My Lucas foglights are mounted on chrome rectangular pedestals and not tubular ones. Also, my grille area by the pedestals are flat black and not painted the color of the car. Is this correct? Also, looking at the pedestals they seem to be all original and they fit perfect etc.
Thoughts?
Eric

 

[RacingFan]

I think you are missing the pedestals that were supposed to be installed when Ford did the Marchall recall. The spacers raised the foglights about 2 or three inches. You can still get them from Branda. and the pedestals should be the same gray color as the grill, so as to make the fog light look like it is suspended in the grill. Hope this helps!

 

[rjw]

The chrome squares under your foglights were utilized on the Shelbys, but not the GT/CS. RacingFan is correct in stating that your pedestals are missing; the correct assembly would have the lights mounted directly on the pedestals without using the chrome square piece. My understanding is that the flat piece where they are mounted, along with the pedestals and the grille should all be painted a medium charcoal gray color. Hope this helps.
Richard

 

[erselt]

Hmmm so I'm missing the gray pedestals. How do the pedestals mount to the base? Would I need another part? The chrome rectangle part looks like it has been on my car for years (I'm a new owner)--but it is from a Shelby? Anyone have a detailed photo of their pedestal/light area?
Thanks for the help!

 

[rjw]

Erselt,
If you go to the "gallery" section, then click on "Misc" which is the first item on the gallery, there is a picture of the correct configuration of fog lamp and pedestal. The Lucas lights that were used on the Shelby came with the chrome square; they were just taken off of the assembly before mounting on the GTCS. Branda has a kit that includes a threaded "receiver" shaft that feeds from the bottom through the pedestal to accept the bolt coming down from the top.
Richard

 

[Russ]

When I purchased my GT/CS, it had the square Lucas mounts also. My car was built on February 14, BUT was not sold from the California dealer until May 15th. Remember, in California, these cars had to be retrofitted with the Lucas lights, and this occurred around the end of April, 1968.

It is my opinion that the replacement Lucas lights came from England as a complete set with the square bases, and the dealers used the chrome square bases instead of the "correct" tubular mounting brackets when these lights were retrofitted at the dealerships. It only makes sense that the dealer would use the Lucas square mounts that were sent with the replacement lamps. It would be crazy for the dealer to order the tubular mounting set AND the Lucas lamps (two seperate orders) when mounting bases were already included in the Lucas lamp set.

Once the Lucas lights were standard equipment at the factory, I'm confident the factory installed the "correct" tubular mounts on the cars.

I have this opinion because there are just too many original GT/CS cars with the square base mounts, and this can't be rationalized as a simple error.

Just my thoughts,

Russ

 

[our special]

Russ, I think that you are right about the dealer install and one other thing was the ease of installation with the chrome piece.

The original owners of our GT/CS received the recall notice and had the Lucas lights installed. When the dealer installed the Lucas lights they used the Shelby mounts. The dealer just just drilled a hole through the grille moulding and the lower grille support and bolted the lights on.

If you installed your pedestals as I did, you realize that there is more involved then with the Shelby Mounts because the square flat washers have to go between the grille moulding and the lower grille support.

In order to do that, the grille mouldings have to come out. Did you notice that each pedestal uses two of these square washers, but only one comes with the kit?

I had two extra washers made up so that they would be installed as per the drawings which gives the lights some spring action instead of being ridget. Dave

 

[erselt]

Thanks guys for the additional info. You probably just saved me almost $100.00 (the price of the tubular mounting kit at branda.com)!
My car was built on 4/15/68, so I probably had original Marchal's. Hmmm..I think I'll leave it stock or how it was originally & now.
Just curious, if I put the tubular pedestals on my car would I have an extra hole where the chrome bases were? Would I need to drill another hole.
Thanks guys!
Eric

 

[Sarge]

Hey erselt,

Mine was built on 4/15/68 as well and did have the Marchal fog lamps. They must be brothers...

Sarge

 

[Russ]

I'm with you, I would not change it either.

The dimensions for the holes for the tubular mounts are found in Paul's book. I don't know if you would have to change your mounting holes, but my GT/CS, which came with the square mounts also, was drilled using the same specifications as the tubular mounts.

Russ

 

[erselt]

Hey "Sarge"

Here's my car. Just curious what does my "brother" look like? I'm in Northern, CA.

Eric

P.S. Yeah I'm going to leave my lights alone and find somewhere else to spend my $100.00. By the way, anyone know where to get extra screws for the taillamps-I'm missing a couple and they are WEIRD threads...I've never seen them before??

 

[Sarge]

Erselt, that is looking pretty clean! The brother still needs a little work, but isn't too far behind. If it is sunny here in San Jose this weekend, I will take a few pics to post...

I know what you are talking about on the taillight screw threads, but haven't seen any replacements yet. Anyone out there know???

Last, how do I get this "I'm a llama" off of my responses ???

Sarge

 

[68sunlitgold]

erselt & Sarge,
you can get the screws from NPD part # 13489-1BK for $12.00 you get 16 screws for both the lens and bezel.
Doug

 

[x-codegtcs]

the "i'm a llama" can be taken off under your profile. The holes should center the lights infront of your grill fog light brackets.

Also on an interesting note, my gt/cs had a front end collision sometime in it's past and some no-name lights replaced the Lucas. I am only guessing they were the Lucas because they used the spacers and tubular bolt to mount the no-names!

 

[hookedtrout]

Nice looking car, can't wait till I get mine back in shape. That is the first time I have ever seen the stripe go all the way to the back wheel well. Is this something that is found on some GT/CS cars?

I love the Chrome Styled Steel wheels. Anyone know if you can send in and have an Argent set Chromed? I'd probably leave mine on if they were Chrome. I run Aluminum mag wheels now and store my Styled Steel.

Cory

 

[erselt]

Cory,

I never noticed the stripe went too far back. I've owned the car for about 6 weeks and when I bought it it was missing the front stripe. I placed the front stripe on within the last week or so. I bet when the car was repainted the painter must have put the rear stripe on in the wrong spot. When he went to put the stripe on in front he realized he was now short striping (hence no stripe for me). Thanks for pointing it out, eventually I will have to repaint since there are tons of chips all over the car--it looks like a daily driver car.

Thanks for the NPD tip Doug. Too bad you can't shop online there.

Eric

 

[68sunlitgold]

Eric,
alot of stripes where put on wrong with the stripes behind the scoop because that is the way they are for the '69 Mustang.
Cory,
you can have the wheels chromed, there was a article in Mustang Monthly, about 2 years ago, that discussed how to do it and who did it. I will try to find it and post the dealers here. I like the argent wheels but they are only correct for real GT cars but I like them anyway.
Doug