pre-porkpie rear lights function

[Stuart Joseph]

Good morning all. Jamie at the Seven Workshop stocks reproduction AT201's with the original faceted ruby red glass (not the oversize plastic lens. The brass threaded ring in the plastic lens will not hold an original glass lens.) Jamie's have a twin contact bulb holder.

Support our cherished suppliers!

Regards from the creative county - Staffordshire.

Stuart

[Dave Mann]

As far as I'm aware the RNs had the At201 or AT20L rear light with a single base contact. I quote from my letter of years ago "In April 1932, from car B5 6100, the rear number plate and rear lamp bracket became a one-piece pressing and the rear lamp had only one side window - Lucas AT201L. Previously the lamp bracket had been riveted to the number plate and the lamp had a window cut in each side of the barrel - Lucas AT201. Curiously, this conflicts with Austin's 'alterations to design' note of September/October stating that a new design of tail lamp was fitted from car B5 6100 which was secured by two nuts (the pork pie lamp?). However the one piece rear number plate on one of our cars has only one large hole for the lamp. Also, I have a period photo of a one of the last RN's produced which shows a Lucas AT201L lamp."
The reproduction AT201Llights I bought in the 1980s were twin base contact with the pins in line, not offset, which I used as stop and tail lights however, this didn't stop dozey drivers bumping into me with only minor damage, including a police car who hadn't expected me to stop on an amber light. Whilst the stop light function was 21 watts I considered the lights to be too low.
 I think stop lights were introduced sometime during the RP production.

[JonE]

That's good to know Stuart thankyou.
I'd be interested to know whether people like Rick have changed from the original enclosed design to the later protruding red plastic design purely because of better visibility, accepting the fact that both can have the brake light function added?

[AustinWood]

At some point I believe the legal requirement for the size of a tail light was increased. I thought this was retrospective and at the same time as 2 lights being required but am not sure. I suspect that is when these lights were modified to have a large lens.

[Mike Costigan]

Yes, Jim, you are correct. Technically the original glass faceted lens has not been legal in the UK since 1955. I remember Tony Griffiths being stopped on one occasion by the police, and he managed to get away by arguing that the total area of all the individual faces was sufficient to comply with the law, but I suspect he was on shaky ground there!

I am somewhat nervous about driving around without brake lights, but in reality even if I fitted them they wouldn't be a lot of use - yesterday I was out in my Seven and did around thirty miles in a mixture of quite rural roads and fairy busy town traffic. As a result of this thread I duly took note of the number of times my brake lights would have lit up, and it amounted to just seven occasions (excluding using the handbrake when stationary), and four of those occasions there was no-one behind me! Basically, I just don't use the brakes - I would be better off switching my lights on each time I slowed down!

[JonE]

with all these repro AT201s using stop and tail function, what do people do with earthing? Run a three core wire and earth at the metal at the base of the unit, as presumably you can't achieve earth return wire running into the unit itself?

And for retrofitting brake lights on earlier chassis, is anything else needed other than the brake stop switch? https://www.theaustinsevenworkshop.com/p...amp-switch

I'm still unsure what proportion of owners are staying with the smaller faceted-glass units and which are changing to the bigger, legal but less vintage-looking ones! Did anyone to the latter and regret it?

thanks...

[Rick F]

As mentioned earlier, I have the smaller "illegal" lenses on my stop/tail lights. But with LEDs fitted, they are more than bright enough.

The lights are mounted on a back-plate that carries the number plate and lights, which is fitted below the boat-tail of my fabric-covered wooden-bodied special. The earth is connected to one of the bolts that attach the brackets to the body and thence to the chassis. A good earth is essential with LEDs.

The stop light is connected via the brake switch to the "A" connection on the switch panel. then to a junction box where it splits to the two stop lights . A similar  connection is made from the "T" connection, via another connector on the junction box to the tail lights. Single core armoured cable is used to the junction box, then twin to the stop/tail lights.