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None of the Glassics or Replicars ever came with functioning cowl lights
when manufactured. Over the years, many people have upgraded to
working cowl lights.
Glassics are reproductions of 1931 Fords, so they use the smooth curved cowl arms - Glassics were never intended to fool anyone, so period correctness is a matter of personal preference.
left, 1928-29 reproduction cowl lights and right 1930-31 reproductions. No ground on either, one has turn signals incorporated. Note the different attachment to the car configurations. As of 2016, you can look at a cost between $100 and $200 for a new set. |
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From a 2012 email response to a question.
As for cowl lights - . The first Glassic I (the Annexmaster) had (a 1978) - someone had drilled out the dummy light and half-way rigged a light in each one. My current car still has the dummy ones, and this one (a 1973) has the big gob of fiberglass covering the nut on the inside. Likely yours does not have that. -- it was done because the nuts would not tighten down right, so they used fiberglass to steady it.
So, reproductions of the 30-31 look most like originals - the 28-29
lights were more of a longer and angular stem on them. The originals,
I believe, attached to the stainless trim around the cowl on a real
Model A, so the back of the stem is slightly curved to cradle over the
trim. Our cars have the lights attached on the flat side of the
cowl, so they would rest differently. If your stem is stainless
steel, you could grind off the curvy part to the back becomes flat, or
perhaps build a washer of sorts to transition the two surfaces. (I
would have tried aluminum rod material, cut down the middle - or one
third, and then round the ends of the piece -- or maybe rubber?)
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| At one point I had asked Joel
who is Joel?
about the glob inside the cowl area and he answered: about the cowl lights.... the cowl light bracket was made of cast aluminum and if the cowl was not thick enough the nut (which had to be "chased" ) would not tighten up, then it would need some help not to spin//// that's why we used a fiberglass spacer or washer to thicken up the attachment "zone?''' |
 un-appetizing view of the left inside of the cowl with the gob or glob of built-up fiberglass. This is as seen from the engine compartment looking toward the rear of the car. This is car 689 and car 407 reports a fiberglass gob as well. If the gob seen here is the result of attaching a fixture such as the 1931 reproduction pictured at the top of this page, an alternative might be to take a large washer, cut notches in the outer edge, bend them over like fingers, or use larger washers to build out the inner wall where the cowl light is un-threaded. I recall once seeing a reproduction light that even had a point below the main threads - so you would drill a small hole in the body to keep the light upright. It may have been a hot rod part. |
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Considerations for replacing the lights. The stem needs to be long enough to reach through the fiberglass. The contour of reproduction lights may be curvy to fit over the trim on the real Model A cowl, whereas on a Glassic, a flat surface is the base for the cowl light. The surface of the Glassic is FLAT, but it is tapered toward the center of the car, so either the stem itself, or the head of the cowl light would want to face outward a bit to line up straight out the front of the car. There may well be more than one brand of repro - cowl lights, so check the pictures before buying. Reproduction cowl light kits are available from mail order houses that carry Model A parts. GROUND - Replica cowl lights are mostly for metal cars, so our fiberglass cars need a ground wire. This could be a very large solderless connector ring inside, the cowl. |
