Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Roadster 100 Modifications

I have overriders so I did exactly that, if you take the right approach it's a straightforward job but I definitely recommend adopting the principle of.....

"measure twice, drill once"



Of course by virtue of having a front bumper you also have two super rigid auxiliary lamp mounting points, however, if you're determined to go with wing fitting you really have two Morgan bracket options that have been specifically designed for the job.

1. Librands brackets - I have an unused set of these for sale if you're interested?




2. Morgan Motor Company brackets (available from Williams Morgan and others)





I bought both types, but as you can see from the above image I settled on the Morgan Motor Company brackets simply because they allowed the floating lamp look I wanted.



I used the above blue Irwin ratchet clamp that allowed me to try multiple positions prior to marking up for drilling the wings, once I'd found the position I was visually happy with I was then able to make a final check to ensure the light output from my Marchal fog lights was not obscured by the overriders as this would have caused a nasty and annoying shadow in their beam pattern.

During the trial fitting process I found the brackets needed to be closed up to allow the right range of lamp adjustment, this may just relate to range of adjustment available on my Marchal lamps and the mounting position I chose but I found a session in the vice and some persuasion with a lump hammer was needed to get the perfect fit. Obviously I took great care to use my jaw protectors in the vice and a piece of hardwood was also deployed to protect the polished stainless finish when striking the brackets, I also invested a lot of time making sure both brackets ended up with the identical angle of bend.



I marketed up the O/S bracket first, then took a series of measurements from various fixed points before exactly replicating the bracket positioning on the N/S, this ensured perfect symmetry. I then removed the overriders to give far better access for drilling, starting with a very small drill bit and going up in two more stages of drill bit size I made sure I was using new sharp high quality cobalt drill bits run at roughly 1,000rpm which seemed to work well on the sheet aluminum panel.

Using sharp new bits run at the correct speed and starting small then drilling up is definitely recommended if you want to achieve nice cleanly cut holes in sheet aluminum !

I then lightly deburred the holes with a needle file, painted the exposed aluminum hole edges with an acid etch primer using a touch up brush before finishing off with a layer of Sport Green, but only after I'd given the etch primer a full day to go off. I also gave the Sport Green top coat a further full day to go off before I fitted the brackets.

The lamps were then bolted to the pre-fitted brackets, before I finally replaced the overriders to complete the job.



The above image shows the end result which I'm very happy with, some say the wings will crack with these MMC floating brackets but I've had no such issues. My experience has been that the thick stainless steel MMC brackets support the weighty Marchal lamps perfectly, obviously I used the nice rubber gaskets that came with the brackets (essential) but also used extra large stainless steel penny washers on the back of the wings to spread the load across the super-formed aluminum panels as broadly as possible.

Nylock nuts were then deployed and tightened up really firmly to create a super solid mount for the lamps, six months after fitting I checked the fasteners for tightness and they had not relaxed at all, this proves if you install the MMC brackets correctly there is absolutely zero risk of movement which I would speculate is the only reason why some people have experience panel cracking around the drilled holes.

Drilling holes in Monty was certainly a bit nerve wracking, however, by taking my time and adopting a careful methodical approach I've ended up with a result I'm very happy with indeed.




I hope the above helps?

Dave.