Koito Headlight Bowls

[jerz]

After literally several years of searching, I recently managed to purchase an unused set of European (UK) specification headlight bowls (this year’s holiday spending will have to take a hit because of it, though). Unusually for a UK example, most of the metalwork on my car is in good condition, but for some reason the existing headlight bowls were badly corroded and un-restorable. It may be to do with the fact that UK roads are often salted in the winter, which does not do the metalwork much good, even after a couple of seasons.

 

I thought there was a post on here which discussed the Koito headlight units, but I cannot find it, where there was possibly a date stamped into the assemblies. On each of the unused assemblies I have (main image IMG_7871) there seem to be two sets of stampings, which can be seen in the attached images. The first is "24152 Koito Japan SAE H 69" (Image IMG_7919) and the second "10-41371 KOITO JAPAN". If these are to do with dates, this could possibly be 1969, 1971, ("41" = 1966 so not that) or "52" = 1977. I would be interested if anyone knows how to decipher these markings, or are they simply not age-related?

 

Thanks.

[Namerow]

Not surprised you couldn't find the earlier reference.  I posted it in a thread about a 4-relay system for headlights and I referred to what you call the 'bowl' as a 'bucket' (we're all colonials over here and we use different words). 

 

Anyway, the bowl that I have was purchased new some thirty years ago and has sat in its box ever since.  It's ink-marked 'L' on the back face of the mounting flange, and that means its designed to be mounted on the 'traffic' side (as opposed to 'curb' side) here in North America.  Looking from the front of the bowl, the mounting tab for the alignment tensioning spring sits at the 7:30 position. 

 

My LHS unit has to following info stamped,into the front face of the mounting flange:

 

"110-24152  Koito  Japan

SAE H 69  DOT"

 

There is a second stamping, located on the stamped-metal headlamp mounting platethat, itself, mounts to the bowl:

 

"10-41371 Koito Japan"

 

This leads me to believe that the numbering is just Koito's internal parts numbering (i.e. not a date code).

 

Nissan PN for the complete (from the label on the original box) is 26060-E4601.  It includes outer bowl (c/w 4 body-mount bolts), headamp mounting plate, alignment tensioning spring, chrome trim ring, rubber mounting gasket, alignment screws and plastic bosses, 3-wire electrical pigtail c/w black plastic and white plastic connectors, connector dustboot, and rubber grommet (where the pigtail passes through the bowl).

Edited July 4, 2015 by Namerow

[jerz]

Thanks for re-posting this information up, much appreciated. I knew I had read up on the subject on this site. I know some S30/S31 parts were date stamped, and in respect of the headlight buckets there was some useful information also posted by member "Kats" on the printed text, relating to which side faced the kerb.  

 

Not sure about the very early (1970/71) cars, but later European headlight buckets have two cables (you can see in the first post IMG_7871), rather than the single cable for (all?) other markets. UK/European cars have a side (not sure if you call it a clearance or pilot) light integral to the headlight, which makes the bucket assemblies difficult to track down, owing to their rarity.

 

Attached is an image of the boxes the assemblies came in.

 

It would be great if someone could put together a photographic/visual reference database for these genuine NOS parts, so anyone restoring these cars in the future could simply refer to the images.

 

Thanks again.