My dad wants to update the headlights on his 69 vert with something brighter than the old stock replacements. Not looking for custom. Just a 4 light replacement set up that will brighten up the road for him at dusk.

Suggestions are welcome from all.


Thx,

TC

 

Whatever bulbs you decide to use I would put them on relays. That's what I did to my 76 and it makes a difference. I have a wiring diagram I drew up for mine but the wiring might not be the same colors.

 

Thank you, Would also like to know what the seems to be the most popular replacement vs. what to stay away from as well.

 

You can look at Hella H1 and H4 glass with newer Halogen bulbs. They can be brighter with no cutting of the bucket. Most of the good LEDs require cutting the bucket for the cooling tower. Upgrading the wiring is definitely a must. Most people at the car shoes are using Jeep LED upgrade kits that are 5 3/4. You can buy a plug and play relay setup that plugs in the existing headlight harness for relay on/off power and hi/lo operation with the illumination power coming through breakers from the battery or starter lug.

I have the H1/H4 setup and have an additional LED bar just above the license plate. Unfortunately it has floods on the end which blind oncoming drivers so I built a shield to cover thiose and a brim to keep the spots low on the road. It helps project out and does a good job on the road edges. Lots of deer this time of the year.

Seems fine at night but at dusk/ twilight its not as bright as the new LEDs and its still hard to see. Thats the worst of it

 

I took the easy way out and purchased the Sylvania halogen bulbs that are direct replacements. Since I don’t drive very much at night, these bulbs are plenty bright. They weren’t cheap, since you are buying four bulbs. I didn’t make any changes to the wiring.

 

Could you post a link for the plug and play harness, I'm curious as to how the floor mounted dimmer switch was incorporated?

 

Be careful on what you install. Halogens may over-current your headlight switch and cause your lights to blink when using the high beams. There is a thermal circuit breaker in the switch to keep it from drawing too much current which turns off all the lights at once if activated. Once it cools back down it closes and your lights come back on. This is the reason to upgrade to relays and upgraded wiring. Using higher wattage bulbs with the stock wiring/switch is just asking for this over-current situation or worse a fire. Installing relays keeps the high current condition out of the headlight switch. All you have going through the switch is low current control voltage and no current draw from the lamps themselves.
When I installed my relays I also upgraded the wiring from the relays to the lamps. This way I can move to any type of lamp system I want in the future. I also used self-resetting circuit breakers in my setup instead of fuses to increase the safety factor. Don't want to blow a fuse on some dark, deserted road in the middle of the night.

Google Danial Stern Lighting to get some ideas.

 

I went with the Hella High/Low beam headlights.
The High/Low fit (but was snug) the High beam would not fit without modifying the mount.

I am running the standard wattage bulbs in the factory wire harness.

 

Me too, easy peasy

 

the harness I have plugs into the end of the harness where the bulb use to, So operating the foot switch just sent power to that socket and the socket would activate a relay to activate the higher amp circuit to the Hellas. So the amperage draw in the original wiring is actually less since only one socket is used and the rest are empty. The main power comes down a 8 gauge wire thougha 30 amp resettable breaker to the new harness and its relays. The rest of the wiring is left alone. I'll post pics when I go ot to the car later today.


it looks something like this one
https://www.corvettemods.com/C3-Corv...s_p_16146.html

 

That's a little pricey for my taste and since the wiring in my 76 is in decent shape I added two relays that are powered by the dimmer switch which relieves the high current draw from the headlight switch. I would be very interested in a diagram of the harness especially the connection point of the 8 gauge wire. Since the positive battery terminal , the termination of the battery cable at the starter solenoid and the positive lug on the alternator are the same electrical point I ran a 12 gauge wire from the alternator lug to terminal 30 on each relay.

 

are you sure about that? i think the headlight switch feeds the dimmer. it in turn powers either 2 lows or 4 highs. with all power coming from headlight switch. so relay power is still coming from headlight switch. you could easily go to the hot stud on alternator, which for all intents and purposes is starter hot stud.

 

Yes, I am. The dimmer switch switches power from the low beam circuit to the high beam circuit or vice versa and the current draw is from the headlight switch. The way I wired mine the dimmer switch merely energizes one of the relays thus eliminating the large current draw through the headlight switch. I have replaced the connector at the dimmer switch since it was melted together making it unusable. Not on the Vette though, it was on a 36 5 window Ford coupe I owned in the 60's.

 

powered by dimmer switch was where i misunderstood.

 

Sorry, I can usually draw it out better than I can explain it.

 

All four headlamps in my '79 [seem] to be originals--the high beams are factory halogens.

They were pretty pathetic until I cleaned the forward lamp harness grounds. After they are just fine and I'm truly surprised at the output of the standard (non-halogen) low beams. Factory wiring. I'm not sure of the ground locations in your year but for '79 there's one at the bottom-left (driver) side of the radiator support and one top center in the front cowl between the pneumatic relays for the headlamp doors.

If you find those grounds filthy--likely as they have no weather protection whatsoever--and clean them strange things might start happening electric-wise. If so, clean ALL of the body grounds. If the turn signals/flashers go wacko after cleaning the front harness grounds you need to clean the non-weather resistant electrical connectors for the little pigtail harness for each of those lamps.

Once you've cleaned all the grounds clean all of the exterior lamp connections and all of the electrical connectors under the hood. Like me you may be amazed at the increased performance from the entire electrical system with things like a noisy, weak HVAC blower motor becoming quiet and strong