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Bad headlighting

Street fighter

Well-Known Member
Local time
6:46 AM
Joined
Aug 5, 2013
Messages
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Location
Vicksburg,Miss.
Every since I have owned my 73 charger which is 28yrs I have had to deal with bad head lighting. I can't say let's see at night. I have replaced the bulbs with so called brighter bulbs but still no better, is there a cure for this problem? am I the only one that has this problem? HELP.
 
eye glasses ? LOL

halogen beams ? I'm happy with them... need relays upgrade to save the switch. I even in fact have barelly used highs using the halogens
 
It sounds like your electrical system
Is old and tired.
A headlight relay upgrade would do the trick.
Member crackback sells custom kits
on here
 
lights-jpg.jpg
lights-1-jpg.jpg
You could install FABO and FBBO member crackedback's headlight upgrade as flypaper said. Here is before and after pictures of a car that has done the conversion.Your dash, rear tail lights and head lights will benefit from it.
 
Running through the factory wiring your lucky if your getting 10 volts to the bulbs. A relay system is the answer.
 
Relay upgrade made a huge difference in mine. No more fear of them them shutting off in the pitch black to haha.
 
Improve your ground and add relays just take power on alt side of ammeter not battery side
 
eye glasses ? LOL

halogen beams ? I'm happy with them... need relays upgrade to save the switch. I even in fact have barelly used highs using the halogens
I have Halogen head lights now but as you said I need to upgrade my relays I guess. Where is the relays located?
 
The problem is there are no relays in the factory system.
Current has to come through the bulkhead connector, then to the Ammeter, then through the headlight switch, then through the dimmer switch, then back through the bulkhead connector, then through a couple of connectors, and then finally to the headlights.
There's a lot places for current to get lost in the factory system, relays eliminate the trouble spots.
 
my 67 lights would dim at idle and never were real bright.
like bm02tj posted my main problem was not a good enough ground.
My stepdad who was a dealership wrench for years back in the 60s and early 70s told me to run a 10ga. ground wire from my battery - to the rad support plus stick a heavy gauge block to battery ground cable on it along with engine to fire wall braided cable.

Not sure if all of it helped or just one of them but it did cure my dim head lights.
 
Most people ignore the ground and it causes most of the problems as it is the other half of the circuit
 
How is your headlight aim?
the aim seems to be good but there is just not enough light to really see good and far enough to feel safe driving at night. I have always tried to do all my driving in the daytime and park it at night.I have done the ground fix sanded the spot where the ground goes to the left side near the battery box but no luck. Thinking about getting the light kit sold by someone on this sight.
 
I installed relays just right after the dimmer floor selector, hidden down the kick panel. No need to cut any wire, just relocate the ones running out to bulkhead from selector into the relays 87 terminals, and run a section of same color wire between dimmer selector outputs into the 86 terminal of relays ( trigger input ). Feeded 30 from ammeter stud, black side, and grounded 85... voila. Engine bay untouched, relays protected from enviroment and nobody will tell you got upgraded those, not even looking at the floor selector

HOWEVER get upgraded the charging system with parallel paths from/to ammeter out of the bulkhead cavities ( bulkhead ones can keep in place )

relay upgrade on kick panel area CORRECTED.jpg
 
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Couldn't find the headlights relay hidden back the kick panels but I did the same for A/C and Heater blower resistor block because the blower lever it keeps overheating and melting the plug... these are pics I took for the low and mid speeds ( heater and max speed are around the steering column ). Relays hidden on back of glovebox, hold by the A/C block bracket stud, just pulled them out to show how it looks the wiring. As mentioned no cut wires, just some adds. You can't tell there are relays there. Plug wires are the same than no relays on system

and as mentioned, the straight path between alt and amm is mandatory for this. Amm and batt could be even optional if you have a decent alt able to give around 50 amps iddling

Sorry the pics quality... they were taken around 6 years ago with an old nokia I had

Imagen226a.jpg Imagen227a.jpg
 
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