I bought a 1964 E-type roadster in 1981. It has been in storage until 4 years ago when I began a full restoration. The headlight covers are in bad shape - too bad for polishing to do any good. I bought a set of replacement covers made by Pilkington. They appear to be the only company in the world making glass covers for the E-type cars. The problem is that they don’t fit. I couldn’t discern the reason until I made a plaster cast of my one that came with my car. Once it was dry, I laid the Pilkington cover on the mold. It’s not only slightly larger, but “rocks” from side to side because it doesn’t have the same curvature as the ones that were on my car. I made a video of the comparison of old and new covers and posted it on YouTube. The link is at the end of this post. I then started searching for an NOS cover on ebay. I found a right side cover and bought it. It fits the mold somewhat better than the Pilkington cover, but still has different curvature. Is it possible that Jaguar made a change at some point in the Series 1 era?
It has audio, so turn your speaker on. Do you know if a change took place?
So about 6 years ago I bought a screen from Pilkington USA for my 64. That screen didn’t come close to fitting my car. The corners simply weren’t bent in far enough. It was like 3/8" wider than my original screen. The person I dealt with at Pilkington tried to help but didn’t really seem to believe me that it was out of spec because when I sent him the measurements for comparison, it was similar to everything on their shelf.
There is a post about the affair including a bunch of photos in the archives here. There is also a thread some time later in the UK E-Type forum where someone went to the Pilkington factory in the UK and proved to them that after many years their forms were failing. Things reportedly got a little better some time after that. So it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the same thing has happened with lenses.
If yours truly unpolishable, and I would ask a professional polisher before deciding that, and you also don’t want to wait years for a NOS pair to pop up on Ebay (I’ve seen a handful over decades), then contact the seller and show them this and ask for a different set. I think you’ve demonstrated the problem very scientifically. When the replacements don’t fit either, contact the UK factory and let them know. I can’t think of another solution. It’s not like you can bend up the bonnet and the chrome ring to fit the lens. There is also no way to heat them a second time to bend them more. It’s laminated glass and the layers are bent independently and then bonded. The bonding layer wouldn’t survive the heat needed to bend.
It will be possible to remove scratches from tempered glass wet sanding with ultra fine paper and a lot of patient elbow grease, followed by compounding and polishing. Expect some surface distortion though. Is the triplex logo on the inside or outside of the covers?
In a couple of dozen restorations I’ve broken at least two of these things trying to fit them.
There are a whole lot of factors in bonnet, chrome rim and glass shape that contributed, and refitting the glasses is usually an awful job.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if in the 6 years Jaguar fitted these the supply changed several times, and also the shape. You have to wonder if the reason Jaguar switched to the later open light style was influenced at least in part by fitting problems.
You might also study carefully the ways in which they differ and decide if the mounting lip in the bonnet can be slightly tapped to make them fit better. This assumes the bonnet still needs to be painted, and that they aren’t very far out of profile. If it’s a different physical size, it is also possible to shape it.
When I was struggling to fit my badly bent screen I tried cutting back the corners, removing about 1/8". It did 't fix the problem unfortunately but it I did remove material. I just used a belt sander, no more than about 15 seconds at a time, then allowed it to cool, and repeated. Wear a respirator while sanding glass, and do it outdoors. .
Yes, Mark Clapp produces plexi covers for both standard and Competition cars and has done for many years. Lots of UK owners fit them for precisely the reasons stated concerning repros of originals. You can contact Mark at: mclapp5526@gmail.com Details of fitment and photos here: The 'E' Type Forum - Login
As for the Triplex logo it looks like this:
Headlamp glass left hand:
Headlamp glass right hand:
Note how the Kite symbol is always pointing to the outer edge.
Note: Some areas of the UK Forum are open to all whilst others require creating a member account and logging in. Doing so opens up a huge amount of information not available to casual readers.
As I found out when I parked my car in the garage one night with the covers intact and found the right cover in a few thousand minute bits on the floor the next morning. Tempered glass can do strange things.
It’s not clear to me just how bad the fit is. A proper seal will be quite soft, with a LOT of compliance, allowing for considerable variation in the shape/size/curvature of the glass. I doubt they ever fit perfectly.
AFAIK, there is no reason tempered glass (which is what the covers are - certainly not laminated “safety” glass) cannot be re-heated, and re-bent, if done properly. The tempering occurs during the cool-down cycle. BUT, to end up with the correct shape would require a form, and the shape of the form may not be precisely the same as the desired final shape, due to distortion that may occur during cooling. And, of course, it requires a suitable kiln to slowly heat and cool the glass, so certainly not a DIY.
When I moved my family into a new home in 1995, I tossed my old (original) scratched TriPlex headlight covers that I’d had on display on a shelf in my garage. I had installed NOS TriPlex covers during restoration in 1985 - 1988, and felt, at the time, that the originals were worthless.
Hence many of us use Mike Clapp’s plexiglass versions from the US. They are a fraction of the cost of the glass ones, fit easily and don’t break. Scratches easily polish out and they seem immune to chips.
The problem comes when you have a repro bonnet panel or wings fitted as the curvature can be wrong and you have no other way of getting the glass covers to fit short of trying to tweak the bonnet.
I noticed today that the Triplex logos on my original covers are not identical. The right side has a number above the logo, while the left side does not. Is that normal?
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![IMG_0954[1].JPG](https://discourse-cdn.jag-lovers.com/original/3X/d/1/d1acde7e3e191f2a5a08dc931c2c7b649eab29c4.jpeg)