Insertable headlight harness -Last build

tvmaster said:
that's as good a place to start as any :) As long as they don't create more heat or melt the existing wiring, it's all good....
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that would depend on the wattage of your bulb vs wattage of your sealed beam. Typical H4 bulbs are 60 watts but I've seen 90+ for sale.
Your sealed beam headlights were set to a 1950's standard to use headlight aiming machines that Gas stations had at the time. Headlamps with H4 bulbs (not sealed) we outlawed in the USA until Gov. Dixie Lee Ray made them legal in the state of Washington. She was the last intelligent and honest politician in Washington State. She was a nuclear scientist.

Cibie of France designed the Z beam to give you a light pattern that was brighter where you would need it and not in the eyes of the oncoming traffic.

Hella of Germany, Carello in Italy and PIAA in Japan made such lights for the aftermarket in the USA and were OEM in Europe.
 
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I used to have Cibie Z Beams on several of my cars. Easily the best light pattern I have had on any car aside from my new Jeep’s HID lights.

I have been hearing good things about the LED 7” based lights from Holley/Morimoto assemblies in a friend’s 124 Spider. Huge step up in lighting and low power consumption.
 
dnudelman said:
that would depend on the wattage of your bulb vs wattage of your sealed beam. Typical H4 bulbs are 60 watts but I've seen 90+ for sale.
Your sealed beam headlights were set to a 1950's standard to use headlight aiming machines that Gas stations had at the time. Headlamps with H4 bulbs (not sealed) we outlawed in the USA until Gov. Dixie Lee Ray made them legal in the state of Washington. She was the last intelligent and honest politician in Washington State. She was a nuclear scientist.

Cibie of France designed the Z beam to give you a light pattern that was brighter where you would need it and not in the eyes of the oncoming traffic.

Hella of Germany, Carello in Italy and PIAA in Japan made such lights for the aftermarket in the USA and were OEM in Europe.
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And these Indian ones you linked - 55/60 watt - these are high beam/ low beam?
 
tvmaster said:
And these Indian ones you linked - 55/60 watt - these are high beam/ low beam?
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An H4 bulb is by definition a high and a low beam bulb. Two different filaments. The 55 watt is the low beam and 60 watts is the high beam.

H4s can be had in several different wattages, higher wattage higher output but one generally has to change the wiring to accommodate the higher load or risk the wires overheating and melting through the insulation.

An H1 bulb is high beam only.

There are other more modern bulb types which are used in either type of lensing system on modern cars.
 
Thanks. So these would perform better than the Westinghouse lights in there now, which don’t give off a particularly useful glow at night. I was also considering LED’s, so there’s that. But if I’m rewiring the lights away from the steering column, the LED’s make less sense?
 
tvmaster said:
Thanks. So these would perform better than the Westinghouse lights in there now, which don’t give off a particularly useful glow at night. I was also considering LED’s, so there’s that. But if I’m rewiring the lights away from the steering column, the LED’s make less sense?
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I'll just mention that the reason I wanted to try the harness was a comment from DanS from Philadelphia from this or another thread who mentioned that one big issue on our dim headlilghts is the voltage drop to the headlights in the stock wiring, and that that drop would obviously affect LEDs as well. He mentioned that even old school sealed beams like we have will look a lot better under full voltage, so I thought I'd give it a whirl for $20.
 
Michael Oxman said:
I'll just mention that the reason I wanted to try the harness was a comment from DanS from Philadelphia from this or another thread who mentioned that one big issue on our dim headlilghts is the voltage drop to the headlights in the stock wiring, and that that drop would obviously affect LEDs as well. He mentioned that even old school sealed beams like we have will look a lot better under full voltage, so I thought I'd give it a whirl for $20.
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Good point. Have you finished installing the kit yet?
 
tvmaster said:
Good point. Have you finished installing the kit yet?
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I haven't started yet. I just picked up a nice length of 12gage wire to replace the short lead that comes with the kit which seems to assume that the battery is in the front of the engine bay. I was going to splice it in between the existing ends with the connectors on them, but there seems to be a strong sentiment here that multiple splices (there'd be two) are not a good thing, so I'll need to get some more hardware first.
 
Anything aside from a candle would be better than the old Westinghouse bulbs. Old sealed beams were archaic tech in 1960. In this day and age they are fossilized dinosaur eggs…

Stop vacillating on such minor things
 
kmead said:
Anything aside from a candle would be better than the old Westinghouse bulbs. Old sealed beams were archaic tech in 1960. In this day and age they are fossilized dinosaur eggs…

Stop vacillating on such minor things
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I think it’s super-fun I have dinosaur headlights now. Thanks, and Happy New Year!
 
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kmead said:
I used to have Cibie Z Beams on several of my cars. Easily the best light pattern I have had on any car aside from my new Jeep’s HID lights.

I have been hearing good things about the LED 7” based lights from Holley/Morimoto assemblies in a friend’s 124 Spider. Huge step up in lighting and low power consumption.
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Yes, KM. I have the morimoto /holley 7". 6000k they are truly a step up.. penultimate, I dare say.
horizontal beam pattern, very clear with no dead spots, almost as good as my 2017 Audi.. really!
 
Why not make your own Xweb retro bright 7 inch sealed beam
2 led superpright LED bulbs, $10.99 on ebay
Speedway Motors H4 Headlight 7 inch round with pigtail kit (1 pair, made in Taiwan) $43.99
Tube JB weld, $7.49 at AutoZone.
Holley sticker, $2.85 on ebay.

Just JB weld the bulbs in place and presto, Xweb retro bright sealed beams for $62.49 a pair.

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