914/6 GT Cibie Spotlight mount fab, winter project |
|
Porsche, and the Porsche crest are registered trademarks of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG.
This site is not affiliated with Porsche in any way. Its only purpose is to provide an online forum for car enthusiasts. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. |
|
914/6 GT Cibie Spotlight mount fab, winter project |
Retroracer |
Feb 7 2020, 07:24 PM
Post
#1
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 612 Joined: 7-July 13 From: Bend OR Member No.: 16,100 Region Association: Pacific Northwest |
I’ve always been fascinated by the front lower spotlight mounting that appears on some of the GT cars, notably the winning 1970 Marathon de la Route cars. A few years ago I got a chance to obtain some original Cibie Iode 45 lamps from a seller in France. These had yellow lenses – one fog, one driving - which matched the yellow Cibie Tango’s I have mounted in my GT tribute car already, in the “standard” fog light position within the fiberglass front bumper. Not clear to me was how the factory fabricated brackets were designed. The inverted “T” cut into the fiberglass bumper meant that the brackets must somehow get fed through that to get mounted; also somehow they mount to the body and may / may not hold the bumper on? Searching in-period as well as recent pictures did not yield many clues; a few detailed the outside construction and bracing, but I had no clear idea of what was behind the bumper cut out. Until: luckily last summer I did get a chance to see the original “Number 2” Marathon car up close at Luft 6, so took the opportunity to crawl around under the front of the car to try and see what was going on. That is, until folks who were waiting to take unobstructed pictures of the legendary vehicle were bored of waiting for the strange geezer lying on his back peering into the oil cooler opening….! I took some detailed pics and thought that attempting to make up some brackets might be a good winter project. It is not clear to me (on olde number 2) whether the brackets were the originals or replicas – but I learned enough to want to try and replicate them. So the brackets themselves (as the pics show) look pretty basic on the face of it. But some thought obviously went into the design, as they need to meet multiple criteria: - be shaped such that they can be fed through the inverted “T” cut in the bumper - secure the bumper to the body - have welded in bracing to prevent the lights vibrating & flexing - clear the front valance mounting tabs (which are just below the bumper mount holes) The upper piece in this shot shows the side profile I went for, bent up in aluminum as a test for clearance; one of the main bracket is being fab'ed using mild steel. The cut in the bumper (fiberglass) was done with fingers crossed but turned out to be correct, the shot below shows a test fit & alignment check before cutting the vertical: I welded some M6 nuts to the strips to use as mounts, aligned with the holes in the bumper and the body. Cutting the bracing pieces needed some experimentation and mocking up, as looking carefully at the existing photos of the OUTSIDE, it was hard to judge overall dimensions – extension, drop, etc. – so in the end it was basically a visual judgement call. and.... |
Retroracer |
Feb 10 2020, 01:19 PM
Post
#2
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 612 Joined: 7-July 13 From: Bend OR Member No.: 16,100 Region Association: Pacific Northwest |
@tygaboy and @mueller @914forme - thanks guys!
@Sway_Bar and @eric9144 - At one point I will post dimensions, as there seems to be interest in this version of the bracket. I don't have these in a coherent form (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) , but I think I can figure out all the main dimensions. Stay tuned. @maf914 : So this is one of those areas where some detail differences among the "GT" cars become obvious. I believe the green car you have in your pix is one of the "privateer" GT builds, which along with the yellow Daytona winning car, took a completely different approach to mounting auxiliary lights. The light unit themselves are different too (instead of Cibie Iode 45's, these look like a combo of Oscars and Super Oscars). Whether these were designed and added at the factory, or later in the US (prior to race events) I don't know, but the positions and bracket hardware are very different from (say) the Marathon cars. BTW, the Sonauto Le Mans class winning car also has signs of having the "center rib" brackets being fitted at one point: you can clearly see the "inverted T" cut out in the bumper. If anyone is thinking about a bracket that works with steel bumpers, you may want to look at something similar to the Rennmetal piece. My interpretation is probably more suited to the fiberglass bumpers, where the bracket actually secures the bumper to the car; the Rennmetal version looks as though to fits between the car and the dog bone and gets clamped in place? - Tony (photo credit to Mr. Serrano) |
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 11th May 2024 - 03:22 AM |
All rights reserved 914World.com © since 2002 |
914World.com is the fastest growing online 914 community! We have it all, classifieds, events, forums, vendors, parts, autocross, racing, technical articles, events calendar, newsletter, restoration, gallery, archives, history and more for your Porsche 914 ... |