Others will have better advice than I do about bulb substitution, but
here's a trick you may want to consider no matter which bulbs you use.
Headlights can be made brighter in most situations by adding a
relayed power source to the lamps. Usually the lights on older cars
suffer from low voltage, caused by creeping resistance in the
harness/light switch and by degraded grounds. Sometimes the original
harness was under-designed to begin with, without enough copper to
handle the load without heating up and dropping voltage. All this
stuff can add up to 2 or 3V drops and dim lights.
The first thing to do no matter what is to clean up and check all
grounds and connections. If you still have lowered voltage as
measured at the lamps, you have a candidate for a relay circuit. With
careful planning and some wiring skill you can usually wire the relay
into existing connectors without chopping up the harness. Then add
nice heavy wire through the power side of the relay to the lamps to
bypass the resistance in the harness/switch. This setup also has the
extra benefit of removing the lamp load from the switch (the switch
now only operates the relay coil instead of the lamps themselves),
which greatly increases the service life of the hard-to-replace dash
switch. Fuse all circuits and do a careful job, and you have an
improved setup that is fully reversible if originality later becomes
an issue.
MD
---chuckc <chuckc@ibm.net> wrote:
>
> I must missed most of this thread. Tell me how I find
> "improved" lighting for my '72. Must I replace the whole
> headlight assembly, the socket, or just the bulb.
>
> I'd really like to get brighter head lights. What
> should I be looking for? Just a brighter (higer draw?)
> lamp in the same diameter lens?
>
> chuck
>
> Daniel1312@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > In a message dated 25/2/1999 0:55:45AM, pasgeirsson@juno.com
writes:
> >
> > << will make your LBC into a Little Bright Car! >>
> >
> > I run 160W main beam and 100W dipped - if the car is idling when
you switch
> > them (main beam) on it almost stalls the engine when the
alternator draws the
> > current to light them!! - current drawn on main beam = almost 27
Amps (more
> > than entire output of dynamo! which is why I have an alternator
fitted).
> >
> > Also because the dynamo output is either 22 Amps or 19 Amps
running high
> > wattage lamps can run it close to its limit when it is charging at
full power.
> >
> > Daniel1312
>
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