[GeoffP]

They may be small, but they are beautifully formed, as was once said in a different context! They were also cheap!
A 3mm stainless steel one piece bracket was manufactured, which is mounted with nuts & bolts in a similar way to the BMW bracket, but it is much stiffer.

[GeoffP]

Another view.

[LuckyRVA]

Looks good, I'm sure they work good also!



-Jason

[perl]

How about the details:

Which lamps?

Drawing or photo of the mount?
How'd you get the mount built?

etc.

perl

[Scargo]

how much? whered u get them from?

looks GREAT BTW!

-Charles

[eltel]

They look very nice, Geoff. I think we would all like to know a bit more about them. Please don't tease us

Regards, ElTel

[GMINI]

SMALL but NICE!!! You've got my attention, too.

[GeoffP]

I took photos during the manufacture of the bracket. Will, hopefully, post some with other details this weekend ( When not watching the British F1 GP )

Geoff.

[GeoffP]

At last, a little later than promised, details of my ‘Small but beautifully formed ‘ lamp setup.
They are unbranded and were purchased at a Kit Car show last year for £7.00 a pair, yes £14.00 for all four, complete with 55w halogen bulbs. This year I have seen them on sale for the vastly increased price of £12.00 a pair!

The bracket was manufactured from 3mm & 1.5mm stainless steel, stiffer than mild steel.
The first photo is the 3mm laser cut blank. Arms ‘A’ are the body mounting points, the top 3 bolt to the bonnet (hood) inner skin, the bottom 2 under the front bonnet edge. Arms ‘B’ are the for lamp mounting. The outer lamp arms are as far apart as possible without cutting the solid black plastic behind the grill. The middle lamps are placed equidistant between the outer. The arms are deliberately long to allow for fitting.
Photo 2 shows the lamp mounting arms bent at 90º on each side of the ‘spine’. The 2 middle lamps are 1 grill slot above the outer ones. The spine is bent at each end to fit the curve of the bonnet, as are the end arms.
Photo 3 shows a ‘U’ section of 1.5mm stainless steel welded to the back of the spine to add stiffness and also for the cables to sit in. The hard board tapped to each side of the lamp arms ensured that the arms were held centrally between the grill slats during fitting.
The mounting arms were shortened and bent to fit the bonnet, the holes were drilled and the bracket successfully fitted. The lamp arms were shortened to place the lamps just forward of the bonnet. After rounding the corners and final fettling, the bracket was black powder coated. Unfortunately my digital camera gave up, and I don’t have photos of that part.
Photo 4, shows the bracket fitted and cabled up. The mounting bolts and supply cables can be clearly seen. The inner pair are fused separately from the outer pair, and the common 40amp relay supply, taken from BC1, is switched so they may be selected to come on with main beam, or not. The relay & fuseholders are mounted behind the r/h parcel shelf. I hope that is of interest. Any questions, please ask.
Credit to my friend Ian for assistance with the photos.
Geoff Poad


Photos 1 to 3.

[GeoffP]

Photo 4

[bigbaddaboom]

Do they actually work like spots!? The std MINI ones basically make a large diffuse splodge in front of the car and don't actually shine down the road too far.

Would be good to know.

[GMINI]

"
Especially considering the ammount of custom work that involves. Thanks for the template and all, but I've never fabricated a dmned thing from stainless. That doesn't mean I won't try. Thanks for posting the pics!

[eltel]

Very nice piece of work, Geoff. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Regards, ElTel

[perl]

Quote:

Originally posted by GeoffP
... The first photo is the 3mm laser cut blank. Arms ‘A’ are the body mounting points, the top 3 bolt to the bonnet (hood) inner skin, the bottom 2 under the front bonnet edge. Arms ‘B’ are the for lamp mounting. The outer lamp arms are as far apart as possible without cutting the solid black plastic behind the grill. The middle lamps are placed equidistant between the outer. The arms are deliberately long to allow for fitting. ...

Geoff:

Nice documentation of the process, very helpful. Do you by any chance have the actual dimension specs for the bracket? Since it was laser cut I am assuming that some spec exists somewhere.

Also, just out of curiosity, about how much did the bracket fabrication cost, including the powder coating? Assuming I could even find a shop willing to do the work, this looks like the way to go - even for two lamps.

perl

[norm03s]

Outstanding work! good show!

[spod]

Looks like a great job and well fitted. I do still prefer the dealer ones as the chrome suits the car better, but it depends if you can afford the cash involved buying 2 sets at BMW prices!

[GeoffP]

At last, a reply to your various questions.

I decided that I didn't wish to cut the approx triangular black plastic pieces behind the ends of the grill, so, as I wanted to make the bracket in one piece, the inside vertical edges of these pieces became the maximum width of the outside edges of the outside arms. Hope that is clear. ( The MINI brackets curve outwards placing the lamps further apart.) The lamp mounting arms, the three top mounting arms and the main spine are 30mm wide. The two bottom mounting arms are 20mm wide. After making a scale drawing, I made a full size card template, bent the lamp arms at 90° and fixed them in position with small pieces of bent alloy. After two attempts, I was happy that all would line up as required, and that the arms were long enough for trimming and fitting.
I gave the template to my friend who runs an engineering business, and he had a CAD drawing made which the cutting machine could ‘read.’ The blank was returned to me and I produced the final bracket. He then had it powder coated. As to cost, it was done on a ‘favour given, favour returned‘ basis, but as a one off it wouldn’t be cheap. It could be made from welded mild steel strip at much less cost.
My friend is over the pond in America at the moment, I will ask him if he still has the CAD drawing when he returns.

Any further questions, please ask.

[brg mini cooper]

hi any chance you could post the cad drawing im intrested in making my own 4 my car ur bracket looks really good is it sturdy enough that the lights dont shake thanks

[Babes]

dude the thread is over 5 years old...