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MG MGB Technical - Dim question

I now find myself commuting in darkness both ways in my 78 BGT. It seems that most other cars on the road have brighter headlights than mine - useful on the country lane stretch of the journey. For a non technical type - who doesn't know his ar*e from his ampflow - is there an easy way, non painful way, to lighten things up? Thanks.
Steve P

Steve,
Cleaning and replacement of the connectors in your lighting circuit will help the situation. And, I know that Sylvania makes a direct-replacement halogen headlight that is readily available. However, your charging system would have to be in top shape, and you'll have to add a relay(s) to use these. May not be dead easy, but any improvement is going to take some effort. Best, Joe
Joe Ullman

I have lucas H4 units in with original wiring and no relay. I do have an alternator, but they're the same wattage rating as the original sealed-beam units, so that makes no odds. They're quite a bit brighter, but I think I'll get me some of those super-bright xenon bulbs sometime.

ttfn,
--
Olly
Oliver Stephenson

check the grounds (earths) on the lights, perhaps that's all that's needed to be fixed. i have swapped the sealed beams with cibie lights (H4) with city lights. wonderful view at night with sharp cut off and ample illumination to the right (left hand drive model lights)

rn
RN Lipow

btw...the fact that i have a delco alternator (70watt) and new wiring harness (painless with 18 circuits) may also help

rn
RN Lipow

I just recently switched from sealed-beam to sealed-beam halogens (I went with GE bulbs) with little effect.

However, since this was obviously no good, I started the wiring route, and used the instructions found here: http://lignting.mbz.org/tech/howto_relay/ (this appears to be down now) to set up relays. My lights are now nice and bright.

It took about an hour, and cost me all of $40 or so.

Of course, this is but one more change that could make me a DPO in the future (but that would involve me selling the car, fat chance of that!).
Aaron Whiteman

Try this instead-
http://lighting.mbz.org/tech/how_to/relays/
Steve S.

yes, thanks steve. I must go update my own website where I grabbed the link.

note to self:
don't update webpages late at night, and avoid posting when you can't think clearly :)
Aaron Whiteman

Stebe: First I'd check the alternator's output. Should be around 14.5 with the original Lucas type. From there I'd check the contacts and ground, clean them up and see what happens.
william fox

Even perfect B lighting will never be as bright as that on modern cars. Any bad connections in the brown - main lighting switch - blue - dipswitch etc through to a common ground for both headlights could be causing a loss of brightness. If either of the switches are getting warm they will also be contributing. Don't think about fitting higher wattage units without also going for relays, and possibly fuses - one per filament.
Paul Hunt

Ditto everyone else's comments, clean all bullets and maybe go for H4 halogens. I did on my'66 GT, big improvement (standard dynamo, incidentally). I also lived in Bromley until a couple of months ago!

Tim.
Tim Jenner

One of the seal beams in my '67 GT failed so I grabbed a Wagner # H6024 halogen replacement and popped it in - what a difference , and this in a generator equipped car with splices in the harness leading to that lamp .

Soon I'll get a 'round tuit and install some relays but for now the headlight switch isn't warm so I'm good to go .

You can also use # 6015 (truck) replacment seal beams , they burn brighter and draw the same current as the standard #6014 seal beam unitl does .
-Nate
Nate

Steve:

Not knowing if you are US or UK based, I don't know if you can find the Sylvania XV (XtraVision) halogen replacements in your area, but if you can, many folks have found these to be a nice compromise between ordinary sealed beam halogen replacements and the usually more expensive H-4 type lamps from Cibie, Marchal, Lucas, etc. The XV lamps come in a purplish box and typically cost around $10-15 apiece. They have a very good pattern and lighting level for less expensive lamps.

As the folks above have mentioned, your system needs to be cleaned up and in good order to take advantage of this benefit, and a set of relays wired in as shown at the site given above, will take much of the increased load of the more powerful lamps off of your lighting switches, especially the column mounted lever switches from 68 on.
Bob Muenchausen

Do the Bosch alt and relay conversion and get yourself some good modern halogen replacements. You'll love to finally see the light.
Luigi

If any one is interested, I recently wrote a "how-to" article on upgrading headlights with relays for a Triumph club newsletter. It may be downloaded at:

http://www.britishv8.org/lights.doc

It's written for Triumphs, but except for the placement of the relays, it will also apply to just about any car. Color codes for the wiring will be the same for MGBs. There is a complete parts list included, with the source listed. Total cost will be around $37.
Dan Masters

Here is a tech article for relays in a MGB
<http://www.mgbexperience.com/electrical/h-lamp_relay.html>
Bob Johnson

Opps, for the link above to work, you have to add a underscore (_) between h-lamp and relay.html
Bob Johnson

Well, folks, it's time again for me to get on my soapbox about fuses in the headlight circuits. Please, before you decide to add fuses, read the article I referenced below and then make up your mind.

One minor correction to the excellent article by Rick Astley on headlight relay circuits. Not to knock Rick at all, he has done a supurb job at his site, and is to be commended for his efforts. I'm sure there are a lot of MGs on the road that wouldn't be without his help. However, he says that if you have a five pin relay, one of them will be a NC (normally closed) terminal marked 87a. When buying relays, you need to be real careful, because they can be confusing. Not all five pin relays are the same. In some cases, the fifth pin is an 87a NC, but on others, it may be another 87 NO pin. Check the wiring diagram printed on the side before you use them. The relays I referenced in my article are of the latter type - ie, TWO 87 pins, both normally open. I use one 87 pin for each side of the car. If you use 14 - 12 gauge wire to wire the relays and use relay sockets, it can be difficult to get two wires onto one terminal of the socket. Using the five pin relay with two 87 contacts, you can wire one side to one pin and the other side to the other pin, eliminating the need to terminate two wires on the same pin. Of course, you don't have to use sockets, but it makes it a lot easier to replace a faulty relay if you do. They are dirt cheap, so I do recommend them. They gang together, so you can group your relays in a line, along with the relays you are using for other applications, making for a much neater installation. A source for sockets is listed in my article.
Dan Masters

This thread was discussed between 21/10/2002 and 22/10/2002

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