damper for headlight vacuum system

[martinbrowning]

Hi all!

Just got my Plus 2 back from a full body respray. When it went to the bodyshop, one area of damage was on the light pods where they strike the bump stop when lowering (under gravity). Just wondered whether anybody had fitted some form of pneumatic damper thingy in the vacuum line to bring the light pods to a gradual,controlled lowered position?

Just an idle thought......

Martin B

[Elanintheforest]

Have your bump stops still got the rubber blocks fitted over the bolt heads? They are quite soft and cushion the pod as it comes down, and mine come down fairly slowly....no damage evident.

Mark

[oldelanman]

Hi Martin,
It's not just gravity that brings the pods down - they are assisted by the spring which also serves to stop them bouncing around when driving. The rate of decent is governed by how fast air can be drawn in via the slots in the vac switch housing so partially sealing them should slow it down I guess. You would probably have to take the switch out to do it so not that simple. If you put a restriction in the line somewhere or tighten the pivot bolts you would also slow down the rate of rise as well which wouldn't be a good idea. I would be inclined to leave well alone and just make sure you have the rubber buffers on the stop bolts as Mark says.

Regards,

[gerrym]

Martin, been down this path before... Do you have a "fail safe" system?. If so, is it just the opening speed (when you turn the lights on) that has the high speed and hence large bump at the end of the travel.

The elegant solution is to fit a damper mounted in parallel with the spring. A friction system (a bit like the old austin 7 system) might work.

if you go down the route of controlling the air ingress (via the vacumm solenoid valve porting), a Lee Restrictor might be a much better idea than a simple orifice. This way, you can get the desired amount of restriction without using a tiny orifice which would block pretty quickly http://www.theleeco.com/JETWEB2.NSF/18a ... iew#PRIMER.

Regards
gerry