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Old 01-25-2010, 02:48 AM   #26
JEM
Ironmonger
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: SF Bay Area, CA
Posts: 127
Re: i have thought about converting

If you want good light, and not just something that looks pretty, IMO you need to look at what GM did for vehicles exported to parts of the world where US-market headlights of that era are considered so bad sometimes they're illegal.

I ended up with these (bought a spare, too, because they'll be unobtanium eventually) for low beams:

http://www.rallylights.com/detail.aspx?ID=3929

with a set of Osram Silverstar +50 H4 bulbs (you can go bigger on wattage if you want, they've got steel reflectors and glass lenses and should take the heat, but I'm happy enough with a decent modern 60/55W +50) for the low-beams, and a set of the 4701 high-beam replacements from here:

http://www.eurolamps.com/eurolamps/c...headlights.htm

with a set of +30 H7 bulbs (never mind their crap about 'xenon' and 'ion' and etc. bulbs, their lamps take a standard H7 halogen bulb, I threw out the blue things they sent and put in good Osram ones.)

The Bosch/Guide lights are European OE-quality, and the best optics you'll find in the little 150mm package. I bought only the lamp assemblies (two low-beams plus a spare) and not the full harness, because I wanted to do my own wiring. The Eurolamps stuff is of indeterminate (India? China?) origin but adequate (they're not plastic) for high-beam use.

Then you need to wire some serious amperage to them because the tiny stock wires can't carry enough current to light up a decent flashlight.

I pulled out the front-body harness and did some serious reworking, used the existing hi/lo headlight wiring to switch a pair of relays (the sealed metripack kind used for the fuel pump on TBI trucks) that feed the headlight circuits directly from the +12 distribution block on the firewall. One walk through the pick-n-pull will yield all the relays and fuse holders needed, then you just need some new metripack terminals to rewire them.

Bought a pile of TXL wire from Waytek (lots more than I needed for this, but I've got a couple other cars to rewire), Metripack terminals from pcsconnectors.com (love them) and mouser.

Very pleased with the results. It'd be fruitless to post pics of the lights because they look stock, I'll try to snap a pic of what my harness ended up looking like.

Last edited by JEM; 01-25-2010 at 03:27 AM.
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