I wanted to increase the daytime visibility of my M3W – automatically - while not running the headlights all the time. They seem to draw a fair bit of power, and I always forget to turn the lights off when I stop. More than once have come back to find the taillight shining away when I left the light switch on. I really liked the look of High Noon's install of vintage amber fog lights, but not having any really cool old lights laying around like him, I had to find an alternative.
I do have a nice set of monster Cibe Bi-Oscar 8" fog & driving lights (from my ProRally days) that I briefly considered, but they dwarf the M3W’s headlights. While I generally subscribe to the “too much is just enough” school of thought, these were truly ridiculous to even consider.
I decided 5” lights were about the right size, and I wanted amber lenses. In the spirit of keeping it British, I looked for a pair of original Lucas SFT 576 lamps, and although they made an amber lens version, they are almost impossible to find. There are reproduction SFT 576 out there, but they don’t compare to the quality of the originals and also don’t come in amber. The other consideration was the original Lucas lights are not easy to re-bulb with LEDs. I wanted to run LEDs to minimize the power consumption for these always-on lights.
I settled on a pair of Marchal 810 IODE amber lights. These are available, relatively speaking, 5”, nicely made, and the originals are a nice polished stainless housing that is relatively flat and not very deep. They also take a standard H3 bulb, so sourcing an LED replacement was easy. Besides, I didn’t think there was anything else French on the otherwise international M3W, and the little Cat logo is cool 😊
I made up a pair of simple brackets from 1 1/2" steel angle and mounted them using the motor mount bolts as did High Noon. I then sourced a pair of repro auxiliary light mounts, originally designed to mount lights on old car bumper brackets. I just used the upper mount, which gave me a chrome riser with a spherical mount to hold the lights a bit higher and also to clear the badge bar I have on my car. I wired the lights up with a relay and a switch mounted in the empty driver-side aux power (lighter) hole Morgan so nicely provided. The switch is not really needed, but I had it and thought it may be useful to be able to turn them off. Power to the relay comes from the seat heater power lead, which is switched with the ignition. With the LED bulbs, they draw very little power, and now come on and off with the ignition.
I think they came out looking good, and although they are likely not much use at improving night-time visibility due to the LED bulbs (to be determined), they should help increase the visibility of the car during daytime running.
Thanks again to High Noon for the concept and inspiration!
Pics follow:
Bracket with chrome light mount installed:
Lights mounted and wired:
Switch install:
Completed, lights-on:
Outdoor view:
