Budget Frenched Headlights

I wanted to French the headlights on my pickup and went to the Big 3 Auto Swap Meet at Qualcomm Stadium parking lot in hopes of finding a kit like I had seen on the Internet.

The price for the kit was listed at $255.00 and I had hoped to find one for a better price at the swap meet.  After walking the entire stadium parking lot on Saturday and Sunday, but not finding the kit anywhere I was a little disappointed when my wife and I left to go meet our son in El Cajon.  We were a little ahead of schedule and stopped at an opening of a new "Factory Liquidators" store and thought we would kill some time walking through the new store.  In the first aisle we walked down I saw some polished stainless steel ice buckets and commented to my wife that they looked a lot like the buckets in the headlight Frenching kit.  I remembered the dimensions needed and two aisles later they had tape measures for sale.  I grabbed a tape and went back to the ice buckets and they were 7 1/4 inches across, exactly the same size as the opening in my fender for the headlamps.  I took a chance and bought two of them for $9.00 each and thought if they didn't work, we at least had some new ice buckets.

I got home and pulled the headlight bucket out of the truck and stuck the ice bucket in the hole.  It was a perfect fit and so I decided to cut one of the buckets off about 2 inches from the top.  I put it on a table upside down, mounded a "Sharpie" marking pen two inches above the table and rotated the bucket, making a nice black line around the perimeter.  I used my cut-off saw to cut along the line and had a modified ice bucket that fit perfectly into the hole in my fender and the headlight bulb fit perfectly inside the open space I created.  I had to find a way to recess the headlight assembly into the fender back far enough that the bulb would sit in the right location, but didn't want to butcher up my stock headlight buckets in case this didn't work and I had to convert back to the original.  A quick trip to Ecology and I picked up some buckets out of an old Isuzu pickup truck for $10 for the pair.  They came with Halogen bulbs in them so it was quite a bargain. 

I took some left over flat steel made a 90 degree bend and cut a piece about an 1/8 inch shorter than the distance from the mount on the new headlight bracket to the back of the ice bucket.  I drilled and tapped the short tab and used a small screw to attach the bracket to the headlight bucket.  (The screws need to come through the bucket and into the bracket so you can remove the bucket.)  I first tack welded the bracket in place and then removed the buckets and welded the other end of the bracket to the inside of the fender and then reinstalled the buckets.

I am very happy with the results and it only cost me $28.00 and a couple hours time.  If you have any questions, e-mail me at terry.newman@littleguysstreetrods.com

Follow up:

I received an some e-mails from Don, who looked everywhere for "ice buckets" for his headlight project but couldn't find any that would work.  He found a solution that should be easy for anyone to locate.

Terry,

Found a solution for other guys seeking trim rings -

56 FORD Pick-up Truck trim rings - they are stainless steel and recessed.

Don

Here are a couple shots of Don's '52 Plymouth Belvedere in western North Carolina.