Headlight Reflectors
 

Sorry that old chestnut again.
I took the V70 for an MOT today and it has failed due to a poor beam pattern from the headlights, caused by the reflectors being faded and corroded.
I've been back through the many threads on headlights here and there are several options-
Replace with projectors or genuine Volvo ones - not cheap.
Replace with new aftermarket - but RHD headlights are hard to find.
Replace with secondhand - but good secondhand ones are rarer than new ones.
Buy LHD aftermarket and swap the lenses.
Resilver the reflectors somehow.

Looking at the last two options several people on the forum have said they are going to or have just done them but I don't see any long term reports so -
Has anyone done the trick of putting RHD lenses on LHD reflectors and gone through the MOT with what results?
Has anyone resilvered their reflector and how has that been in the longer term? (and what material did you use)

From what I've gathered from on here if you buy a set of left hand drive lights and swap lenses then it has the same effect as buying new right hand drive lights-although I've never tried it-for the past 5 tests my V70 passed with advisory on the lights being just good enough to pass due to poor reflectors.Late last year I dropped on a set of second hand crystals with indicators for what I considered a reasonable sum[certainly less than a pair of new standard lights would have cost]so I took the opportunity to buy those and fit them keeping the original lights to either re-instate them should I sell/scrap the car or as a back up should the crystals get broken or something.

David, sorry to hear about your steed's MOT failure. Mine suffered a similar fate two MOTs ago following a couple of years as advisories. I'm afraid that I can't offer any advice regarding the reconditioning of your existing units, but anecdotally believe that at best it will have only limited success.

I went down the 'used' route. 'minty' of this forum was most helpful in quickly sourcing a replacement for me at what I felt to be a very reasonable price. It is certainly possible that he may also be able to help you too, and it might be worth your while dropping him a PM before embarking on any more involved action with potentially dubious success.

I hope that this is helpful and that you are quickly able to restore your car to full health. An added advantage of fitting used units is that you can then keep your old lenses as spares in case of stone damage, etc.

Regards, John.

Some C70 owners have reported success with self adhesive chrome reflective vinyl wrap. Apparently the wrap is cut into thin strips and pressed on to the reflector with each strip overlapping the previous one. The long term solution would be to have the reflectors re-silvered. Dual Metallising in Birmingham specialise in the process and is the gold - or silver :) - standard. No idea of cost, but would suspect that and the lead in time would be prohibitive.

This company should be able to sort you out Click...

I looked into this company and published my findings a while back.
It's just cheaper to buy new ones.

Have you got a link?

https://dual-metallising.co.uk/ looks promising, I will ask them about prices.

A few years ago I did get some V70 reflectors metallised in Eastern Europe and kept almost all of them for my own use. Transport costs were significant.

I recently took a refinished headlight back off my daily driver and the reflector looked as good as it did when I fitted it.

I have been setting aside old headlights and I could do another batch (probably got about another 12). If anyone is interested, please get in touch.


When you get into it you need to check your
glass/lens (chips/cracks/flecks/brand)
adjusting motors
clips
foam strips
brass mounting fittings (can get cross threaded, or twisted out)
mounting bolts (heads and threads can get messed up)
reflector mounting and pivot points (can snap off)
bulb holders (sidelight holder tends to deteriorate with age)
transport/postage costs

HTH
Steve

PS
Searched this forum and found quite a few posts containing metallising.

This is a good one

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showt...llising&page=3


HTH
Steve

Thanks for the replies.
The idea of remetallising the old ones appeals to me on a technical and recycling level but unfortunately this car is my daily driver so I am up against the time crunch, given the amount of work which is involved with remetallising I can't see any company being able to turn them round that quickly even if I could jump to the front of the queue, if I end up putting some ok-ish secondhand ones on maybe I'll look into it further but then as rudi dudi points out price becomes a significant factor.

I did pop to Hobbycraft yesterday evening and picked up some 'silver' leaf (this) used in craft work for like gilding, I was expecting just a very thin leaf of metal but it is actually a thin plastic sheet with the metal on the back so it doesn't conform well to a compound curve like the reflector would be, I've had limited success trying it on an old plastic funnel I had in the garage, what I have achieved would probably be better than the reflectors are now but it looks like a bodge job.