Headlights

[busted knuckles]

I was driving my dart tonight, I had the revs up fairly high and my headlights got quite abit brighter. I have never noticed this before. What could the cause be? I tried to mimic this in park, with the rpm up, but did not do it. Thanks for any replies.

 

[mullinax95]

I was driving my dart tonight, I had the revs up fairly high and my headlights got quite abit brighter. I have never noticed this before. What could the cause be? I tried to mimic this in park, with the rpm up, but did not do it. Thanks for any replies.

I don't know what year your car is but I have a 67 Barracuda and it had the old style alternator and voltage regulator. I had the same problem with my car and decided to do something about it. I changed the entire charging system to a 75 charging system. The alternator is putting out 80 amps opposed to the old 35 amps now. My headlights stay at a constant brightness at whatever RPM of the motor and of course a lot brighter now. I also bypassed the amp gauge under the dash and upgraded my wiring to larger wire. Check this out and perform these tech articles and you will have a healthy charging system and nice bright headlights.

http://www.madelectrical.com/electrical-tech.shtml

 

[Ace]

I like to run the headlights off relays with heavier gauge wire on all my old Mopars . The stock wiring is too small and tends to eventually burn out the switch, no matter how much juice you try to push through it.

 

[busted knuckles]

The car is a 72 dart. I have seen the lights get brighter before, as I increase rpm, but this time they flashed brighter than usual.

 

[mullinax95]

I like to run the headlights off relays with heavier gauge wire on all my old Mopars . The stock wiring is too small and tends to eventually burn out the switch, no matter how much juice you try to push through it.

Yeah that is the next trick that I will do to my car. The relays is a great idea to put full amps/vollts to the headlights rather than run the amps/volts through the switch. I have seen the wiring diagram somewhere that shows exactly how it needs to be connected. I think it is on the madelectrical web page but not sure.

 

[mullinax95]

The car is a 72 dart. I have seen the lights get brighter before, as I increase rpm, but this time they flashed brighter than usual.

Might be the voltage regulator or a loose connection. The main problem with old mopars is the buckhead connector on the fire wall. I took all of them loose when I did the amp gauge bypass and clean all the connectors real good before I reconnected it back up.

 

[dodgem383]

also check the diodes on back side of alternator,they're in the six square holes on back,the diodes are round should be 6 of them also.Missing one of those will do same thing,had a 72 duster do same thing.

 

[GoodysGotaCuda]

Here is my relay 'how-to' which will get you some brighter lights. I upgraded to H4's

http://goodysgotacuda.com/Headlights.html

 

[busted knuckles]

Thanks everyone. I will check connections and diodes. I am going to consider the upgrade. One thing that I wondered about was the fact that I just installed a stereo a day or two before. But I used the same connections that the radio used. I dont think the two are related. Famous last words.

 

[mullinax95]

Thanks everyone. I will check connections and diodes. I am going to consider the upgrade. One thing that I wondered about was the fact that I just installed a stereo a day or two before. But I used the same connections that the radio used. I dont think the two are related. Famous last words.

I have a question now that you mention installing a stereo. Is it a stereo system with amplifier and sub woofers or did you just switch out the radio (now called head unit) for a upgraded version? If you have installed a amp for either the drive speakers or added a amp to power sub woofers then it is going to be related. But if you just switched out the head unit and have not added any amplifier then used the same wires for power and speakers then it should not cause your headlights to dim.

 

[busted knuckles]

Yeah, I just took out some old pos and put in a panasonic cd player. Same speakers, no amp or anything else.

 

[racyroy1]

hey knuckles, plain and simple your voltage reg is not keep the voltage at 12-14 volts it is allowing it to go higher..... Change out the reg and you'll be fine
it's called volts per hz or rpm change. the reg should never let it go above,, say 14.5 but you could be running as high as 20 volts.

If you have a seperate regulator then change it, if the reg is incorporated in to the alt obviously chang the alt

racy.:read2: