Thread: nEED ADVISE ON HEADLIGHTS

Dick Smith have a relay cradle for $2, which saves you soldering wires to the relay contacts.

http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.st...uct/View/P8036

Cheers,
Andrew

Increasing the wattage does not increase the range by much it only increases the intencity of the light on the ground.

Do not buy a kit with too big a difference between high and low beam because your eyes take time to adjust and at a high speed you may miss seeing something.

I have access to 55/75, 55/100, 65/250, 100/150 and 150/250 and from experience all I use is 55/60 in PIAA headlights.

Ross

A quick test before you do anything would be to check for existing voltage drop.

Turn your lights on, measure the battery voltage (at the battery terminals), then measure the lamp voltage (on the lamp contacts). The difference between the two is the voltage drop and represents power that your lights are missing out on.
You may get a reasonable result by just correcting the voltage drop using a relay, good size wire (and a fuse). Then add some driving lights for high beam.

By doing the test first you'll be able to measure the improvement you've made, instead of thinking a couple of weeks down the track, "well, it looks brighter".

Thankyou one and all again for the useful information. I think I will go the easy way and just increase the wattage by a slight bit so that I I don't have to muck around with wireing and a relay I'll spend that time instead giving the old girl a grease, oil and transmission fluid change....I have been threatening this for a while.

Thanks again.

Bleeding, being an English car, I would be cleaning all of the earth connections.... Seems to be a common failling..

From a serial Pommy car owner

BT,
if you're going to up the wattage of the bulbs (even slightly) without upgrading anything else, I'd strongly suggest carrying some spare fuses and a a torch for a while when driving at night, specially with the wonderful electrics that Mr Lucas provides.

Mick

Hi Gra, The poms sure know how to build cars eh? Their electricals are just dandy! Note that I don't say electronics as I dont think they have got that far yet.

I recently had a switch on the electric seats fail, so I pulled it apart and was most bemused to see that it operated using a series of brass terminals and ball bearings that made the connections. The type of technology that was redundant by the end of the 70's.

But for all their quirks they have something that turns an otherwise perfectly rational and sane human being into a masochist or what you euphemistically describe as a serial pommy car owner.

EDIT ..Mick - Torch? Fuses? those are standard equipment along with spare wire, crimping tool and terminals, soldering iron etc etc...
They never issued a tool kit with them when they were new I guess they thought they didn't have the boot space

Originally Posted by Bleedin Thumb

I think I will go the easy way and just increase the wattage by a slight bit...

The problem is that there is no "slight"... The most common globes you'll find are 60/55, 100/55, 100/90 & 130/90, so any upgrade will benefit from a wiring and relay change. You can do it without it, but long term, you'll have dramas.