Page 4 - Butchering Your Aerodyne

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One type was sloped front to back and also wider at the top than the
bottom, which suited the 401’s rear shape - almost. The bulb holder did
fit through the exiting hole in the body but I still needed to drill two screw
fitting holes and finally went for it drilling two little bolt holes! Not a de-
cision I was completely 100% behind but something had to happen and
off the warts came.
However, the repeater bulb was not very powerful and was a small
one buried inside the fitment. OK as a right angled side-on repeater but not really as an indicator. An engi-
neering friend modified the fitment taking out the small repeater bulb buried deep inside and fitted a new
bulb holder for a standard 21watt bulb more prominent and just below the Amber cover. He also fitted a
very small 21watt bulb under the Amber reflector so that two lights flashed at the same time - Bingo!
A little bit of black sealing was necessary for full waterproofing and the only negative was the angle
at which the indicators can be seen, close up in daylight they can be a little invisible if cars are very close
but at a reasonable distance no problem at all and easy to see at night but in the interest of safety, I decided
on more lights facing backwards..
So why the extra indicators? Looking at the angles of visibility requirements for vehicles first used
on or after the 1st April 1986 it must be 80 degrees outwards and 45 degrees inwards, as per the diagram. It
seems there is no specified requirements
on older vehicles but I simply don’t trust
other motorists and 80 degrees sounds
fine to me but I do not cover all of the 45
degrees.

The rear stop/tail lights on a 401 are very weak by modern stan-
dards and I sometimes think a candle in the rear window would
be just as good. There are of course modern very strong
quartz/halogen bulbs but these I understand are basically directional and 401 rear lights face out at an angle
and not directly backwards. L464e’s as per the picture would help with this and they would easily slot in to
replace the 3-ribbed glass but they would then further obscure my indicators, which would make extra re-
peaters an absolute necessity, so no action yet!
Being safety concious and still being a little paranoid about another idiot running into the back of
“Cammie”, the next thing I need to fit are the indicator repeaters in a more rear facing position, esuring I
cover all angles, and also perhaps extra brake/tail lights.
Still being a little concerned about the vision of my angled indicators, my search revealed a number
of possible solutions to both indicator repeaters and matching brake lights. I found the Orange “repeaters”
on the bottom pic. They measure 2.75” long (70mm) by 1.375 wide (35mm) and 1” high (25mm) at the
highest point of their dome shape. There are other similar sizes as well and they would fit very snugly on
the rear valances and would be very unobtrusive, helping to cover all angles but there are other similar small
types as well, including white ones that when activated glow amber. They just require two small screw
holes and another for the wiring.
But matching brake/tail raised a problem as all of these lights seemed to be sealed and just thrown
away and replaced when they stop working but they are so cheap that it’s no problem at all, assuming I can
remember where I bought them! However, as they are sealed there would have to be one red for a tail light,
one for a brake light and one indicator repeater, which makes three each side.
Ditching the tail light cuts this down to two as I don’t want to create a mobile
Blackpool illuminations! I do have a high level 3rd brake light in the rear window
that is both tail and brake light, so I’m really OK at this point but if I’m fitting re-
peater indicators I decided that matching tail/brake lights would be ideal and my
collection of rejected lights expanded.