406 headlights

[Stefan]

And of course do try Classic Bristol Car Parts in Liphook, they hold much of the former factory stock. Graeme is very knowledgable and helpful. Yes, they were Marchal.

[Geoff Kingston]

The early 401's and Bentley Mk Vi R type were fitted with the larger 770 lamps as opposed to the 700 units fitted to the later cars, I would not have expected these to be on a 406 but if the wings have been cut back a bit it may offer a solution. Some of the associated parts for these early lamps are available from Holdes (new) and from Flying Spares (new & s/h ) , Holden's may also have the adapters to fit the later 7" lamps to these bowls but not sure what outer chrome rings you would need or the source, I was told the Marchal lamps in the Brian May sale made serious money.
I cant access my parts store at the moment to give you the measurements of these early units due to a bad carpel tunnel inflammation but if it improves over the weekend I will try. There were two types of the larger bowls one that fitted behind the wing and one that fitted on top.

[amazon69]

A 406 should have either
These:
https://www.les-six-troenes.com/part...t-beauty-rims/
or
these:
https://www.les-six-troenes.com/part/16/marchal-105160-headlight-beauty-rim/

These are both in the Marchal 1959 catalogue, the ref 7966 is the earlier model 105.160 the is the successor

The Marchal units used at the time in the Bristol cars are slightly larger than 7, and the rims linked to above only fit the Marchal buckets.
Helping keep the cost down is the fact that the rims were also used on Ferrari 250 swb cars.

On my 406 I fitted p700 lights into generic buckets, I had to do a tiny bit of filing and possibly a new hole or two, but certainly nothing major, and nothing that would prevent original parts being fitted should they appear/I win the lottery. the trickiest part was finding trim rings that filled out to the edge of the wing. I tried all sorts and in the end the best I found are from a Volvo 1800s, see pic.

hth

[henkdrie]

Here is a picture of the headlight of my 406E after refurbishment by Genie of the lamp..

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