A body lighting Swap

Next instalment of info (also posted in another thread but wanted to add it here for "one stop shopping")

Headlight performance is very tricky to judge…headlights that create the subjective impression of "wow, these are great" (or even just "yeah, these are OK") aren't necessarily good—or even adequate—for minimal safety performance. The human visual system is a rotten judge of its own performance; it's really easy to create situations that make us feel we can see a lot better (or not nearly as well) as we think we can. Off-brand H4 lamps (anything not made by Cibie, Marchal, Carello, Hella, Bosch, Koito, Stanley, or Ichikoh) are a bad bet. If you do try out any replaceable-bulb headlight, make sure the bulb has uncoloured clear glass. No blue/purple/other tint, which just blocks light that would otherwise reach the road.

If you are looking for a modern-appearing headlamp (i.e., with a window-clear lens and jeweled optic reflector):

The current Jeep Wrangler (JK) has pretty headlights, and they are a direct swap in place of a 7" sealed beam (except for the socket, different for their H13 bulb than for the standard sealed beam or H4 type socket...you can get a good H13 socket here and a "looks like the back of a sealed beam or H4" plug from the same company here; add a few bits of wire to create the needed adaptor pigtail), and they're certainly adequate, legal, and safe. A lot of JK owners hate those lamps and swap them out for good H4s; scrounge around on the Jeep JK forums and you may find a pair of the JK lamps for cheap money. Use only original Chrysler ones; aftermarket OE-style replacement headlights (all of them) are trash. If you use the JK headlamp, use this H13 bulb.

Or use a set of Hummer H2 headlamps (a Visteon-made unit with a #9007 bulb, also sold by Truck-Lite with the adaptor pigtail) is also a direct swap for sealed beams. It is a poorer performer than the JK lamp, but again, it's safe and legal. When I was done with the set I had on my test bench, I sold 'em to my across-the-street neighbour for his '74 Valiant. He likes them better than the weak old original sealed beams. But like the JK lamps, they have plastic lenses that will eventually fog up and cloud over. If you use it, use this 9007 bulb. Note Truck-Lite also sells this H4 lamp with window-clear lens, advertised with completely made-up improvement numbers. It's imported from China and Truck-Lite got their butts handed to them after pushing this unit to over-the-road truckers...they (the lights, not the truckers) don't work very well and tend to fall apart. :roll:

If you want a decent-performing, well-made 7" headlamp with a window-clear lens, the options are very limited. It shouldn't be that way (doesn't take any more effort or cost to engineer good optics than bad ones) but it is. The only one I can think of that is worth a toss comes from a cooperative Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealership parts department. Part number is 68345-05. It's a European-code "right-dipping" (right-hand traffic, i.e., correct side of the road for the way we drive in North America) H4 unit with built-in parking light. Very well made, in America, by North American Lighting, a major original-equipment headlighting supplier. Comes with a little Harley Davidson logo in the middle, but you can easily pluck it off the lens when the lamp's hot. Tough glass lens, glass-filled thermoset reflector; OE-quality seal boot and O-rings, etc; good stuff. The domestic version isn't nearly as good; don't let the Harley dealer talk you into a different part number. Here's an online vendor selling them; don't know how the price compares but it's about right for this lamp.

The best standard-wattage H4 bulb on the market is this one; the best slightly-higher-than-stock-wattage H4 is this one, and the best bulb for the built-in parking light is this one. The built-in parking light is a separate socket O-ringed into the reflector a few inches away from the H4 bulb. It's not a turn signal or a daytime running light or anything, but a parking lamp. One wire to parking lamp feed, other wire to ground. It lights up the whole headlamp in a sort of "pilot light" manner. You may have to notch your headlamp bucket to clear the parking light socket.

If you want to spend a big whack of money and have world-class headlamps, it's these (the XE7, not the XE7R, which is not as good as the XE7 but still reasonably good). Bucket mods required!

If you want to spend about the same big whack of money and have "legal and adequate" (but that's all they are) headlamps with cool LED technology, it's these Truck-Lite units.

If you want to spend a huge whack of money and have headlamps with reasonable performance but super cool LED projector technology, it's these Speaker LED units.

-slantsixdan, the resident lighting geek :toothy10: