Shedding some light on a dim situation

As many Telstar owners know, there headlights leave a lot to be desired. Even from factory, the light output wasn't fantastic, albeit better than their 626/MX6 cousin's. The reflector shape and size, combined with a H4 globe, meant you had the ability to light up part of your path. Nothing mind blowing here.
Now to add 20-30 years of degradation, ageing from weathering (many lived outsiders their entire lives) cheap repairs and water ingress.

Your once shiny reflector has now been hit with the ugly stick as the paint and chrome flake away from the housing. To add to this, your headlight has the newfound lighting output of a near on expired candle. Yellow, intermittent and not very bright.





So you own one of these cars and you're desperate to improve your ability to see in the dark. Well, you have a few options. Your first option is to buy new headlights. But who in their right mind buy a new headlight for a 30 year old Telstar? Well as it turns out, unless you're living in Indonesia, Malaysia or Taiwan, the answer is nobody. You can't source new headlights anywhere here in Australia. I've looked high and low, they can't be found.

So your next option is to buy 2nd hand. Fantastic! All you need to do is find someone wrecking a car and you're all sorted. Well.... Not really. Cars are usually wrecked for a reason, mostly because of their age. Most, if not all of the cars you see being wrecked, will have headlights in similar condition to yours, if not worse...

Let's turn the doom and gloom around for a minute and let's say you found what looks to be some good headlights. They're shiny(ish) and don't have broken lenses, so you buy them. But they seem a little odd.

We'll there's a good reason for that, my sub-optimally enlightened friend. Throughout the AT Telstars lifetime, there were 3 replacements available that I've managed to find so far. The best being the OEM equipped Stanley branded headlight. Instantly recognisable by their fantastic fit, nicely moulded plastics and good hardware such as mounting tabs and clips.

Stanley Headlights can be identified by the markings on the lens on the inner lower corner closest to the grill.

These offer perfect fitment and excellent quality. The down side is that being OEM they are expensive, so many people opted for the cheaper options when a minor fender bender dictated a Change in your night vision capabilities.

The next challenger is TYC. TYC Genera as they are formally known, is an aftermarket parts manufacture originating from Taiwan.

They offer OEM style replacement lamps for many makes and models. They are even original equipment supplier to International Trucks, Suzuki and Freightliner in the USA and to Mini and Ducati motorcycles in Europe.

TYC headlights can be identified by the marking on the lens in the middle at the bottom.

What does all this mean? It means they are the best aftermarket direct replacement headlights you can get. The reflector are as good as the Stanley items and all the plastics are nicely moulded. There are some inconsistencies when it comes to pattern sharpness, but this could be due to moulding techniques or even copy write laws. All the hardware is OEM quality. Everything fits nicely. There are no unusual defects. They are a good thing.

So what is the 3rd offering you say? SAP / NTY. These have no markings of origin, however they do have SAP and H4 on the glass lens.

SAP headlights can be identified by H4 and SAP markings on the lens.

They are horrible. The plastic moulding is terrible. Everything is deformed and not straight. The supporting webbing is deformed and there is flashing from the mould everywhere.

There is no mounting hardware for the reflector or the Parker light. "No problem, I'll use my original ones". We'll there is a problem, the globe mount for the parker doesn't fit.

But that's not all, the headlight doesn't fit into the car without making some "clearance cuts". Say what? Yep you heard me. Clearance cuts. You know, when you have to cut up your new headlight to get it to fit. Yeah that.. The guard side mount when aligned to the locating pin, doesn't. Fit.

PERFECT! So you managed to find a pair of surprisingly new pair of headlights, that now don't fit. Awesome..


There is another option however. The original, as well as aftermarket headlights, can be disassembled and repaired. The lenses, unles sthey are cracked or broekn, will only need a clean up and polish. The reflectors you have a few options with too. If the chrome is intact, they can be polished up. If not, you can have them rechromed. It isn't $20 cheap, but it isn't expensive either. The end result is new chromed reflectors!

Let's say you don't want to drop a couple of hundred dollars on a 30 year old car. Your next option is chrome paint or even liquid chrome. It is more labour intensive, because lets face it, you don't want to pay someone else to do it. So the more effort you go to and the better product you use here, the better the result.

Photo pinched from the Ford Telstar Owners Group Facebook page.

There is the reflector also the reflector trim piece which is chromed in the Stanley unit's and painted silver in the aftermarket ones. This is where you can introduce your creative flair. You could paint them in boring silver, or you could colour code them or even paint them black!!!! Doesn't this affect your lighting output, well. A little, but it's a damn sight better than your old busted, water logged yellow headlights, that's for sure!!!

What did I do you ask? In the past I painted them black and polished the reflectors housings. What did I do with the AT? I just found the best headlights I could, cleaned and polished them up internally and externally. The driverside is a Stanley unit and the passenger side is TYC. It'll do for now until I find something better.