Courtesy light upgrade for early 107

[erubin]

Can anyone help me with interior lighting? I own a 1972 450SL. These early 107s did not come with courtesy lights above the windshield. It makes it real hard to read a map at night. How would I go about installing one on the driver side (mechanically and electrically)?

I'm going to remove the trim above the windshield to tighten the sunvisor so it stops drooping. Thought this would be a good time to combine the work.

Thanks

P.S. If your interested, especially if you can help with the above, I'll be glad to scan and e-mail a 1977 handwritten MB letter explaining why they decided to badge 1972 450SLs with 350SL tags when sent to the US. It's a pretty funny story, written in English by a MB German fellow.

[kip Foss]

To start with you can't stop the visor from drooping by removing it. The chances are that the little gray plastic thing that holds the visor into the roof is cracked. At 30 years old I bet this is the cause. I know this because I just took mine out. These retainers are available from MB for $11 each. The fact that the visor rotates down from the horizontal is a problem internal to the visor and not the outboard end. The outboard end has the plastic retainer, a washer. a spring, a washer, and a spring retainer. This retainer is pressed on to the shaft and not screwed on. To take it off grab it gentaly with a pair of pliers, pull up slowly and rotate back and forth. Taking this retainer off will accomplish absolutely nothing when trying to make the visor stop flopping down in front of the window. You co, however, need to remove all of the above parts if you want to replace the plastic mounting bracket.

[erubin]

Kip,

I removed the trim (requires yanking off the mirror by pulling on its stem) and after that it's real easy to adjust the screw that controls the the friction on the ball end. This cured my visor droop problem perfectly. I also used some locktite on the above mentioned adj. screw so that it would stay in place. I found detailed instructions on this by searching this forum.

Still looking for info on a map light for my car which was the original intent of my posting.

[DanielG]

Hi -- I had a late model Mustang convertible (now sold)-- The car is of course based on the Mustang coupe -- which had courtesy lights in the ceiling (the convertible has no ceiling when the top is down ) -- Ford solved the problem by putting the lights for the convertible on the bottom surface of the mirror housing. I did some research on the web, because I wanted a mirror that had a thermometer to read outside temp. (just to have a good idea when it was ok to drop the top) -- I found the following company:

http://www.mitocorp.com/nvsmirro.htm


I never installed this (Ford dealership said it wouldn't install a third party product), but it is could be a solution for you. I think it only comes with a windshield mount -- so you would have to find some kind of cap to cover the opening for your missing original mirror. You also need to feed electricity to the unit (but you must have thought of this as you were looking to place lights above the windshield) I assume that your visors have lighted mirrors and you will tap in from there? On top of the courtesy lights, you can have a compass, a thermometer and an auto-dimming mirror with this item.

Anyway, its an option.

Good luck!

[DanielG]

You should also check Ebay -- I note that there is always an interior mirror with lights for sale -- always cheaper than the $300 for the mirror sold at the above web site!

[abe g]

An easy fix for drooping sunvisors: Use velcro on sunvisor and on tops (soft and hard), I did this and most problems solved. Regards, Abe G

[maheath]

You might look into finding the header pieces from a later model that had the lights.

Electrically, the wires on my 560SL come up from the passenger side A-pillar. I've never taken the A-pillar apart, but the rest of it seems pretty easy, route the wire behind the glove box and up the A-pillar and across the top header. You'll have to decide where to put the switch.