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brighter head light or head light H-4 conversion

Brilliant !!!

Thanks to slantsixdan for your thoughts and recommendations, and to subboz for thoughts and pix! In addition to older wiring, our eyes are older and weaker than they were back in the day, so any improvements that can be made become that much more important. It is always helpful to arm yourself with the best information you can find when attempting any fix for your ride. Anyone who wants to sell you parts will try to tell you they are offering significant improvement over OE, so it is easy to understand how people can spend hard earned money and get little to nothing in the way of benefits for their trouble. I will definitely be installing relays and heavier wiring when my new lights go in.
 
I read some of Slantsix post I on other forums (a-body?) and his information is some of where I pulled by lame post(damn experts :) ). His info on post was a direct reason did the alternator mods, relays and the headlight. Just to much information out there on benefits of doing it to not do it.

As Slant said its all about saving pennies in production.
1973 Satellites I think 120,000 total were built. You save a .10 per car in wire for headlights and another .10 per car in headlight switches. Add that to the bottom line for every 973,000 plymouth cars produced that year ... 194,000!! 1973 dollars just for "barely adequate" in headlights.....Its easy to see how they engineer cost saving measures once you see that the small cost add up on production lines.

Hell I spent over $100.00 in relays, wires, connectors, breakers just to do an upgrade. After working on cars (hobby) for my small 20 years I find auto wiring is the most understood and HACKED area. People just think of the test light lights up,,,I can use that. Look at most electric fan installs done on cars prior to the last 5 years. Most wires are fused together not to mention crappy toggle switches and burnt plastic.
 
I have a buddy who works in the freightliner truck parts dept. If you want cheap 5 3/4" H4 housings - semi's use these housings and the best part...their $12 bux apiece - cheaper than my hellas thats for sure:headbang:
 
Mmm…no. There are no Freightliners that come with 5¾" H4 headlamps in the North American market.
 
Why couldn't we go to a to a junk yard and check on different ones in some cars/trucks, Might be able to pick up a few things related to relays and maybe switches..
 
I was thinking about that. I know right where the HD relays are for the lighting system on Police interceptors, and could get a couple in a second from a junkyard, but these things do fail over time and I figured I might as well start with new ones.

Also, how many AMPs should that relay be able to carry? I was looking at 60 AMP relays.
 
So where's the best place to get the relays for a conversion?

I humbly recommend DS Lighting for a complete kit of all the right parts; supply your own wire and time/effort. See article on Allpar here and here. The photos of the headlight beams on the road in both articles are very poor, but the text is very descriptive and accurate. There was also a similar article (w/better pictures) in Mopar Action in 2006 or so, but I don't think it's online.

Used relays are a gamble -- not a good one when the consequence of failure is sudden darkness while you're driving.

60A relays would be over-over-overkill. Nothing wrong with 'em, but that's a way higher rating than needed or helpful.
 
General use automotive “Bosch” type relays are rated at 30-40 amps and are available new at almost any auto parts store for a few bucks apiece.
 
OK, let's switch the discussion to the taillights and side marker lights too!! Are there any LED tail light conversions available that will replace the standard bulbs? Is anyone making aftermarket LED tail light conversions for Mopars?
 
OK, let's switch the discussion to the taillights and side marker lights too!! Are there any LED tail light conversions available that will replace the standard bulbs? Is anyone making aftermarket LED tail light conversions for Mopars?

Yes, these products (both types you ask about) are available. No, you should not use them, because they are dangerous -- they will sharply increase your likelihood of getting in a crash (which is why they're also illegal).

To make a safe, good-performing LED lamp for an older vehicle application is not an impossible task, but it is not a simple or trivial one. There are critical safety performance issues involved with a car's brake/tail/turn lights; they need to work in specific ways to do their job effectively and keep you safe on the road. Just looking at a homemade or aftermarket brake light and saying "Yup, looks nice and bright" isn't good enough. Before you spend any money or time on this, please see here and here and here, and (more technical stuff) here. You might also want to look here. See also here and here.

If you don't want to click links to other threads, read this:

LED signalling lamps (brake, tail, turn...) are appearing on more and more cars, and are widely used on trucks, but it really is not a "retrofit" item in the sense of dropping in an "LED bulb". The "LED bulbs" that are available all over the internet are dangerous junk. The brake, tail, parking, and signal lamps of your car rely on a point source of light (glowing filament) that radiates more or less equally in all directions -- a sphere of light -- collecting and distributing that light with optics in the lens and/or reflector. An LED is a totally different kind of light source. Unlike a glowing filament, it does not produce light in an even sphere. Instead, it projects a very narrow beam of light in a narrow single direction. That's why these so-called "LED retrofits" are unsafe; there's no way you can get enough light through a wide enough angle (horizontally and vertically) to create a safe and legally-compliant lamp. This applies even to the fancier "LED bulbs" that have a cluster or tower of side-facing as well as rear-facing emitters. The problem is not with any marketer's particular implementation, the problem is with the concept, which does not (cannot) work.

There are other considerations, too -- for any automotive lighting function, not only is it crucial that the intensity be within the proper limits through the entire relevant range of vertical and horizontal angles so as to provide a recognizeable and penetrating signal to observers at any angle to your vehicle, not only must the intensity ratio between bright and dim modes be correct (for combination brake/tail or park/turn lamps), but the effective projected luminous lens area must not be reduced. EPLLA refers to the amount of lens area significantly lit up when the lighting device is active. With "LED bulbs" installed in lamps meant for filament bulbs, you tend to get a little dot of light with the rest of the lens almost completely unlit -- reasonably well photo-illustrated here . So not only is the visibly lit area dimmer, it's also smaller. Safety? Not so much!

Look closely at the optics of one of the newer vehicles that has LED brake/tail lamps. You'll see optics totally different in configuration compared to those found in bulb-type devices. These special optics are necessary to coordinate the light from a large number of LEDs (relative to the overall size of the device) to get everything right in terms of brightness in both dim and bright mode, uniformity of brightness throughout the visibility angles required by law, ratio of intensity between "bright" and "dim" mode, EPLLA, etc. These kinds of optics are not something you can kludge in your garage, let alone achieve with these unsafe "LED bulb retrofits".

Lighting devices meant to take bulbs need to use bulbs. Retrofitment can be done, but not with "LED bulbs", nor with LED "panels" sold by some vendors to fit various classic cars.

Safe/effective homemade LED lamps are possible but not simple to construct. See threads here and here for two examples of homemade LED light projects with the right amount of thought, effort, understanding, and technique behind them to be probably safe.

For those (most of us) who lack the tools, expertise, and equipment to make their own safe and effective LED lights, and who are wise enough to avoid the fast-talking profiteers -- the vendors who offer "LED retrofits" for classic cars -- but who want LED lights, you can sometimes get clever with ready-made truck/bus LED lamps placed inside the lenses of your car's original lights. You have to be careful to get the placement right; they need to be upright, facing straight, without any slant, tilt, or inward or outward rotation (the exception is the units made specifically for postal trucks with a 7° forward tilt to the rear surface where the taillamps are mounted). If the units you pick have a "TOP" marking, it must be at the (duh) top. My favorites are these, in clear-lens variety when available; their performance is excellent and they aren't expensive:

2" × 6" oblong

4" round

3" × 5" rectangular

If you go shopping around for other ready-made LED lamps, pay attention to the functions they're able to do. A marker or clearance lamp can't do brake light duty (not bright enough, wrong light distribution through the range of angles), for example.
 
h 4 bulbs in 5 3/4 size light not worth it ?

:headbang:
I am not planning on running the car at night time except in the odd summer nights coming back from a cruise .I still want bright headlights for my ride .Can you please help me with a set up for a 5 3/4 headlight configuration . Even send me a list and a general wiring diagram if it is not to much trouble .I am getting older and need more light to see .....thanks again ....
 
Dan I know you give the most up to date and correct information about lighting. But I will be danged if I can understand any of it. :BangHead:
 
Old tired rebel, that suggests I'm not doing a good enough job of explaining whatever points you're not clear on, because none of this is very complex. I do tend to babble on about it; ask questions and I'll see if I can give simple-to-understand answers.


Red340bbody, sorry to have missed your post -- I thought I was subscribed to notifications for this thread, but I guess not. Will send you a PM.

Talhair and Bruzilla, those lights you linked aren't an upgrade (they're a downgrade).
 
Old tired rebel, that suggests I'm not doing a good enough job of explaining whatever points you're not clear on, because none of this is very complex. I do tend to babble on about it; ask questions and I'll see if I can give simple-to-understand answers.


Red340bbody, sorry to have missed your post -- I thought I was subscribed to notifications for this thread, but I guess not. Will send you a PM.

Talhair and Bruzilla, those lights you linked aren't an upgrade (they're a downgrade).

thanks for the clarification and setting the record straight Dan.
 
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