After looking through the boxes of parts for me 1921 490 sedan. I came across the headlights. There are two different lens. The guy I bought the car from said one was broken when he got the car. Can someone tell me what would be the correct lens for my car. If anyone has one or even a set to sell I would be interested. Thanks, Paul

I do not know for sure about the younger models of four-ninety, but to my 1916 the lenses are 4 mm window glas, which can easily be cut/bought by your local glas supplier.

In Flint I saw several other patterns on the lenses of the four-nineties, so it may be different styles, depending of the original and the after market that had to be bought when the stock of originals ended.

Solan
The 4 mm window glass headlight lenses were exclusive to Australia, at least in the eastern states. From what I could research, the law would not allow clear glass lenses and so they were supplied with "1 inch broadline" glasses. From the distributor? I'm not sure.
By the way, the glasses in your car were supplied by me a long while ago. I found a glass place that had stacks of that glass, had them cut and I reckon I sold over 500 sets to Aus. Chev owners.
My 28 runs them still.
Chris

I agree with Solan, that the lens for the Headlamp should be plain glass, I looked through my 4 different parts books, and the 1916-17-18 book only shows plain glass, the 1922 (and 1920 no picture) parts book plain glass aswell, but my combined 1294 parts book shown the glass with a pattern, but is still the same part number as the other parts books, part number H-738.

The other interesting thing is that the headlight rims were either nickel plated or painted black enamel, depending on which wiring was used , Double circuit or single circuit.

Thanks for the comments. I cannot tell for sure about the originality of the lenses to Solan, but Brian insisted on they were original. And there were several 490s in Flint with same lenses, without any pattern, just plain glas. From some sellers on eBay and elsewhere I have been told the more "fancy" types were aftermarket styles, coming in the market around 1920-22. I think that could be true, specially as all efforts were made to keep the price of the first 490s as low as possible. Plain glas would be some cents cheaper I think.

I searched just now on several forums and they confirm F**D used the same plain glas till 1922, then changed to ribbed glass, most likely because the authorities did not accept the plain glas any more for safety reasons. That decision may have been the reason why the aftermarket types came at the same time.