Topic: tail light housing plating

[FXguy]

On early 64 1/2 taillight housings is the plating clear cad, tin, or clear zinc?  I had thought it was zinc but found a set of old housings and some pictures of others that look more like clear cad.

TIA,

-Scott

[J_Speegle]

Never tested the plating to be certain.  Of course today getting cad done can be very difficult and most choose clear or silver (what it calls depends on your region of the country) zinc to reproduce the look. Not lead plated like the filler necks were originally done

[CharlesTurner]

Clear zinc

[FXguy]

Thank you Jeff and Charles.  I'm travelling right now or else I would post pictures, but the earlier ones with the longer black pigtail cover with black wire having printed engineering number are the ones that seem less shiny like clear cad.

Thanks again,

-Scott

[CharlesTurner]

They were all zinc.  It helped with the brightness of the bulb.

[FXguy]

Now that I'm back here are some comparison pictures of the two housings.  The stamping on the brighter one is not as crisp as the duller one.  Also, the leads are red and black on the brighter one while those on the duller are green and black with Ford engineering number stamped on the black wire.  Are the brighter ones repros or just a different OEM?  What about the color of the wires?  I've never seen originals with red wires only green.

Thanks,

Scott

[CharlesTurner]

The lower one looks like a service replacement or a repro.  Originals with pigtail are black/orange and black/green

There is a lot of variance in zinc plating and consider originals are 50+ years old and depending on conditions the plating breaks down.

If you want the correct plating, they should be zinc.

[FXguy]

The lower one looks like a service replacement or a repro.  Originals with pigtail are black/orange and black/green

There is a lot of variance in zinc plating and consider originals are 50+ years old and depending on conditions the plating breaks down.

If you want the correct plating, they should be zinc.

Thank you, Charles.  I have three June 64 cars (all Dearborn) and a July 64 car(SJ) handy at the moment.  Two June and the July have the green wires on both right and left housings.   The other June Dearborn has the other type of pigtail on the right (see pic below), still a green wire though, but I am not sure that it is original to the car.  I noticed this same type pigtail and in another post by Jeff talking about trunk wire loom tags.  Is there a pattern to this that we see over different time periods/plants?  Should all early cars of these plants and time periods have the green wires on both the right and left housing?

TIA

-Scott

[CharlesTurner]

I was referring to the tail light buckets with integrated pigtail wiring.  I'm not sure if the example given was actually used in production, maybe someone else has reference pics?  I always thought those adapters were to fit 64.5 wiring harnesses to the later style tail light buckets.

[FXguy]

I was referring to the tail light buckets with integrated pigtail wiring.  I'm not sure if the example given was actually used in production, maybe someone else has reference pics?  I always thought those adapters were to fit 64.5 wiring harnesses to the later style tail light buckets.

Here's a link to the pics that Jeff posted in the trunk labels thread
http://www.concoursmustang.com/forum/index.php?topic=16031.msg100598#msg100598

There is an April and a July Dearborne with the coaxial plug.  I thought that all 64 1/2 cars had the integral pigtail on the tail light lamp body through August 20ish...these look to have the plug integral with the harness, not a pigtail.

-Scott

[CharlesTurner]

There is an April and a July Dearborne with the coaxial plug.  I thought that all 64 1/2 cars had the integral pigtail on the tail light lamp body through August 20ish...these look to have the plug integral with the harness, not a pigtail.

Yes, it would make sense that the system was used up until the changeover to alternator cars since generator cars use a different tail light wiring harness, headlight switch and turn signal switch.

Regarding the link, I don't see any with the adapter plugs.

[FXguy]

Regarding the link, I don't see any with the adapter plugs.

Right, but it is odd that these two 64 1/2 cars have the later style coaxial plug integral with the harness (not the early style pigtail and harness with plugs).  I had the impression from Jeff's post that these were unrestored cars, but maybe they are not.


-Scott

[CharlesTurner]

In Jeff's post, there was only 1 with a 64.5 VIN, which had the typical integrated pigtail wiring.