I’m gonna do my best to describe this issue I have discovered today. I was assembling the headlight assemblies on my 1965 Starfire. Each assembly is labeled LH or RH respectively. Each headlight bucket/holder which mounts into the assembly for the Starfire has a small L1/L2/R1/R2 on them Designating of course highbeam and low beam and left and right sides. The bucket/holder part is the same on my dynamic 88. R and L1 designate the high beams, R and L2 to designate the low beams. However when you put them in that position on the Starfire housing, only the left side aligns the bulbs So they are clocked properly. The right side no matter what position you switch R1 and R2 in, the bulbs will not fit in the proper spot. The only way to have them clocked up right using the R buckets, is to put a high beam on the outer edge and low beam on the inner edge. Taking extra buckets I have, the simple solution is another set of L1 and L2 buckets. However since I received the Starfire in parts the existing buckets I have should have been the ones the car came with, as it was disassembled by the previous owner. This would mean that the right side headlights on a Starfire would be clocked 90° Counter clockwise from the factory? Has anyone else run into this situation?

 

I'd consider the bulb being the wrong part number.

 

These are simply standard highbeam and low beam bulbs. I can’t see there being a specific bulb for the right side of 65 Starfire. Plus I tried multiple bulbs as I have a large inventory, The “alignment tabs“ on the highbeam and low beam bulbs are all the same For their respective Type of bulb. Plus, these bulbs I have work on every other 1965 88 I have ... and that is 3 additional ones...and 1966 Toronado .

 

Why don't you look at the Dynamic and see which bucket is installed where?

 

The Dynamic bucket position has R1 as the high beam and R2 as the low beam on right side (L1&L2 same for the left), no problem there. Since the Dynamic utilizes four separate housings, one each for the low beam and the high beam, where the Starfire has both buckets mount inside one square housing, the design and placement of the adjuster mounting screws is different causing this incorrect "clocking" (if that's even a word) of the buckets mounting within the right side Starfire housing. I don't have a pic of my Dynamic housings at the moment,


here's one I found but adjuster screws are hard to see and since it's not mounted to the car their position can not be shown with them like this. I knew this would be hard to explain, but I guess I'm looking for confirmation that someone else has noticed this on their '65 Starfire? Like I said, the fix is simply getting another set of the L1 and L2 buckets and mount them in the right side housing, it just strikes me odd that this was like this and that I had the R1 and R2 for this car.....

I have and extra L1 but now have to hunt down an L2 bucket... : (

 

....So basically, the blue indicates where the adjuster screws need to be on the RH Starfire housing to properly clock the bulbs using the corresponding R1 & R2 buckets. the Dynamic has them in the proper places on each round housing. It's just weird...the Star fire HAS to utilize a set of L1 & L2 for both left and right sides

 

The parts book shows the same four headlight buckets used on all 1965 Oldsmobiles:

5963890 RH outer (low beam)
5955500 LH outer (low beam)
5955498 RH inner (high beam)
5948825 LH inner (high beam)

 

I was afraid of that ... lol ... That means I'm missing something simple or obvious ... thanks. That does help Joe.

 

Ok, so I figured this out and it was simple... L1 and L2 go on the right assembly and R1 and R2 go on the left assembly Then all headlight bulbs line up correctly.

How did I come to this conclusion? Well coincidentally. there is a person on Ebay selling a full set of NOS GM headlight buckets and trim rings for '58 to '67 Models and in the listing notes they had this disclaimer ( assuming for a purchaser who runs into the issue I had and think they are not correctly described)...

From the listing... "Complete set enough to do one car. Includes one of each: R1, R2, L1, and L2. The R1 and L1 are for high beam and the R2 and L2 are for the low beam bulbs. One of the mounting rings has a dent(See last PIC), otherwise these are in great condition.

PLEASE NOTE: Some GM models may have either one or both of the R1 and R2 may actually fit the drivers side and the L1 and L2 fit the passenger."

This got me thinking.....and then...yep! A 1965 Starfire is one of those cars. Mystery solved.

 

Wow...not captian obvious. Thanks for closing the loop here.