Dull F headlights - How to cure.

Sometimes the glass inserts are coated with crud, if so you can dismantle the headlight and clean the glass. However, usually a lack of pattern and dullness is due to the chrome coating on the reflector deteriorating.

Now there is a firm that will rechrome them.

Resilvering headlight reflectors - try Dual Metallising, Tyseley Birmingham. 0121 708 2256. cost about £82.50 inc. VAT.

The only downside is that you have to dismantle the headlight and send only the reflector part.

Hi David
not been on website for a while, there is an article in this months Enjoying MG (MGOC club magazine) about refurbishing the MGF headlamps and using Dual metalising for the recoating. yes they have to be dismantled with extreme care, as replacement glasses are expensive and new light unit are around £185 each! the reccomendation is to buy some lights on ebay or breakers and refurbish these, because its a slow job and the car needs to be off the road for about two weeks. presume you know that the front bumper has to be removed to get the headlamps out, the MGOC have also written about this procedure. ther are some very interesting and informative articles on the internet on this subject ~ Google MGF Headlamps.
Regards
Bryan

Bryan Young;13070 wrote: Hi David
not been on website for a while, there is an article in this months Enjoying MG (MGOC club magazine) about refurbishing the MGF headlamps and using Dual metalising for the recoating. yes they have to be dismantled with extreme care, as replacement glasses are expensive and new light unit are around £185 each! the reccomendation is to buy some lights on ebay or breakers and refurbish these, because its a slow job and the car needs to be off the road for about two weeks. presume you know that the front bumper has to be removed to get the headlamps out, the MGOC have also written about this procedure. ther are some very interesting and informative articles on the internet on this subject ~ Google MGF Headlamps.
Regards
Bryan

That's useful information, Bryan.
The idea of buying a spare set of headlamps is probably the way to go if you need the car on the road quickly.
Having Trophy-ised my headlamps I know how finicky it is to dismantle the assembly.

I'm not sure we have the complete 'how-to' here? Anyway, I've just stripped and rebuilt a head light successfully. The plastic in the casing of the old unit (actually only 3 years old 'new old stock') where the yellow adjuster (the up - down one) fits cracked and the reflector was vibrating. A bit of epxoy sorted it for a while but that gave-up too so I bought a used casing of 'we love MGs' for £25 (£20 to anyone who does not live 'off-shore') and successfully transferred all the bits today. The critical bit is prizing the reflector unit of the 3 ball joints (2 adjusters, one fixed) without breaking something and then replacing it without damage. What I realized is that while the fixed ball joint and the white/top adjuster are press on, the yellow bottom adjuster is a clip on. So my advice is clip on to the bottom adjuster first, then the white adjuster - push fit, make sure to support the back of the adjuster - then the fixed ball last. It also helps to wind the adjusters out, to do it with the plastic warm and put a dab of light oil on the ball to help it locate.

Richard