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Headlights
Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2009 11:04 pm
by Smithcraft
Some people here are rather unhappy with their plastic headlights, so I figured I'd share my thoughts...
I have a 1996 Lincoln Mark VIII. Generally a great car when it wants to be, but never at night.
The problems with it's headlights are two fold. The first is the plastic hazes up. This cuts down on transmission. The second is that the reflective coating is very thin and flakes off of the inside of the housing, which cuts down rather substantially from the light that is being sent through the low transmission lens.
I couldn't find the old site that I was looking for, but here is a
link to a HID conversion. Just look at the second picture down! Now imagine dark country roads!
I think I've actually scared friends and coworkers that have gone with me at night!
Sometimes even the yellow grass is greener than the yard with dirt!
SC
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 2:37 am
by Dynamic Entry
here's the thread
http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic. ... hlight=hid
here's the skinny, Reason was the vendor selling HID kits, and vrg3 is our electrical god
vrg3 wrote:Well, common sense tells me that you can't put an arc-shaped light source into optics designed for a cylindrical-shaped light source and get the same beam pattern out,
especially if the arc's orientation is perpendicular to the original cylinder's.
It seems to me that the halogen filament for the high beam would have to end up even further away from where it originally was, too.
My experience with the optics in various lamps tells me that changing the position of a light source can cause areas of output which used to be local maxima to become local minima, which seems like it could cause the dangerous situation of having a lot of light but not in the actual place it's needed, and I wouldn't want to have an optical illusion where I think I can see better but can actually see worse.
Also, I'd be worried about ending up with light scattering up high. Common sense and experience tells me that light would just shine off rain and fog and blind me.
I've also read documents like the following which indicate that kits like these are unsafe:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/rulings/glare.html
http://www.hella.com/produktion/HellaUS ... proved.jsp
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech ... sions.html
So. Do you have any information that runs contrary to this? Or any photometric information at all?
Reason wrote:Any HID conversion kit is illegal for road use and is for show or off road only. And I would believe it's because what you said. I don't have any info and I emailed the vendor and they or closed till Christmas.
There's no info I could provide to make these 'seem' like they are safe for the road. Just like some other parts that's are for "off road' use only.
I'll see what the manufacture can send me, but I'm sure they will say they are for "show" or "off road" use only. All HID conversion kits are illegal. That's as much as I know.
vrg3 wrote:Thanks.
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:19 am
by jamal
Well, you listed the problems pretty clearly, how is putting in a brighter bulb the solution? Especially since the filament is in a different place and will reflect light differently.
The only way to do HIDs is with HID housings. On some cars it's possible to just swap in the headlights from a trim level that has them. On most others you have to retrofit a projector from a different car, and then make sure it's aimed right and has the proper cut off. Even then it's illegal.
Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 9:43 am
by Smithcraft
That's what people were doing, swapping HID headlight housings for regular. The next problem was that the bulbs were a proprietary design and are no longer available for love or money.
The current solution is to take the regular headlight housings apart, resurface the interior of the housing with something shiny, reassemble, and then polish the lens. It's also illegal, if I understand correctly, to put any sort of coating on a headlight, but you can buy headlight films, certainly for off road use only
, to protect the lens from damaging UV and IR light.
Once I get some stuff taken care of with the Legacy, I'll take some pictures to show the difference between really bad headlights, and not that great headlights...
SC