Continuing Sealed Beam Headlight problems

[handcannon]

Plenty of possums though and they're always a good chance ... Except for they always seem to duck out of the way at the last minute somehow (after you've seen them disappear under your bonnet and seemingly perfectly lined up with one of your front wheels). Anyway, they're far too small..
.

No, I'm not the expert you are hoping will chime in, just wanting to say thanks for this thread, I'm really enjoying the enlightenment. (hehe) The pics and info are great.

On to possums. They are nothing more than speed bumps to make sure your speed is kept under control. The animal I don't like having to dodge is the skunk, they have a rather obnoxious smell to them. Too many of them around here. I think there are more than possums, which we have too many of.

Don

 

[bj40green]

Where do I start on this "sealed beam analysis" project? Let's go back in time. I'm from Holland or The Netherlands, it's the same. I've had cars from the age of 15 and did a lot of little repairs myself. In Holland everything is regulated by law or by regulations (or criteria) for products. When the Halogen lamp came into the market a lot of these regulations changed.
- The dip for low and high beam was set.
- The deflection to the shoulder of the road was set.
- The (up) deflection for reading the traffic signs was set.
- The wattage for each light bulb was set. You can see this in your user manual.

This was mandatory specified. Car manufacturers had to comply with these regulations and thus modify the light circuits to pass the examination test for approval on the Dutch/European roads.
All the cars I owned had light bulbs. I have never seen a sealed beam until I moved to Costa Rica.

Me and the moved to Costa Rica in August 2000. One of the first things we did was buying a car. My motto was and still is.... buy a brand and model that can be fixed on every street corner. So we bought a 1990 Toyota 4Runner , 6 cylinder, gasoline, automatic, 4WD, hi-low, bells and whistles, with 3 months warranty from the Toyota dealer in San José (the capital of Costa Rica).

After a few days I had a problem with the left head light so I opened the hood and looked at this strange headlight.
Where is the light bulb? What is this? How can I fix this and so on. At this point I had never seen a sealed beam, I didn't even know that this huge light bulb was called a "sealed beam".

So the hunt for a huge light bulb starts. I was in many shops looking for this huge light bulb. It was stamped Wagner A2 IIRC or maybe B2. I can't remember. All I saw was boxes with rally lights, fog lights, hunting lights, round, square, rectangular with white glass, yellow glass until came to a shelf with boxes that were labeled Wagner A2.
Upon inspection and opening the box it turned out that this was not a fog light but the huge light bulb that I was looking for. The price was $9 (in 2000) maybe cheap, maybe expensive, I didn't know. I was glad i finally had them and bought 2 of them.

The next puzzle was how to replace them? Turned out that you have to remove the bezel/grill to get there.
After replacement I thought it was a good idea to check on the adjustment so I waited till it was dark and made a test drive. I'll not repeat what I said that evening but translated it was: There is light everywhere but only a little right in front of me. Low beam, high beam, the pattern changed but not to my satisfaction. I was used to the Dutch/European light pattern so I decided to adjust the lights.
No matter what I did, how I adjusted them, left, right, up, down, on my garage door, the light spread was bad. A lot of stray light but not where it should be. The questions now was.... do I have the right or the wrong head lights so I decided to go to a Toyota dealer in the area where I was at that moment. Now the story get's funny.

I went to the parts desk and the guy asked me; que modelo / Which model? It's a 4Runner. Que año / what year? It's a 1990. His answer; NO! No existe! Free translation: impossible.
After checking the VIN number it turns out that the 4Runner (General Market model) was imported into Costa Rica from 1992 and that my 4Runner was an USA Market model from 1990.
Anyway, checking out the head lights revealed the following; USA Market models have sealed beams and General Market models have bulbs aka non-sealed beams.
We checked the sealed beams and they were the correct model replacement for my 4Runner.
So now the question was.... why do I have such a lousy light pattern?

The answer is; It's the design of the sealed beams.

It's now 1.26 AM and time to go to bed. To be continued.....

Rudi

 

[lostmarbles]

No, I'm not the expert you are hoping will chime in, just wanting to say thanks for this thread, I'm really enjoying the enlightenment. (hehe) The pics and info are great.

On to possums. They are nothing more than speed bumps to make sure your speed is kept under control. The animal I don't like having to dodge is the skunk, they have a rather obnoxious smell to them. Too many of them around here. I think there are more than possums, which we have too many of.
Don

I don't like possums either Don.. (Could you tell?) They're not native to New Zealand, they breed prolifically, they spread disease, they destroy the native bush (particularly our most beautiful trees like the mighty rata) and they even raid birds nests to directly lower bird numbers. The only effective control mechanism we have here is 1080 poison but there is unfortunately growing pressure here from "non-wilderness-venturing greenies" to ban it. (Only people who regularly get right out into the wilderness areas seem to be aware of the extent of the damage that gets done when 1080 poisoning is stopped and of the big increase in native bird populations when it is resumed.)

Sounds like I'm lucky my ancestors didn't choose to bring in skunks instead of possums to keep themselves warm (with fur coats) though.

Glad your enjoying the thread ... I sometimes fear that my habit of going into minute details might make people think I believe myself to be superior and that I'm "talking down to the ignorant masses". Hell... THAT certainly is not the case... Today for instance (and just a few hours ago at that) I was finally buttoning up the rear brakes on my wife's car and came back to it following a brief break. I decided to leap in, start it, and push the brake pedal (to make sure the shoes were properly seated). At the time I thought both drums were fitted because I could see that was certainly the case on the driver's side as I got in. So I gave the pedal a good push and ....JEEZE MATE!!!.... Right down to the floor it went! Agghhh! It wasn't like that a minute ago was it?. Never mind...Must be just the booster having kicked in and maybe all those pistons moving out a bit to get the shoes sitting properly against the drums eh? Because after all, I remember winding the adjusters right in to fit the new shoes (with their much-thicker linings). So why not a few more good pumps on the brake pedal? Yep. ------Gave it quite a few actually....................... because I took quite some convincing that I could once again have messed up something that I was so close to having completed!

And getting back out revealed

• no fluid left in the master
• brake fluid on the ground (well ... actually soaking into the bit of carpet I use to kneel on) by the left-rear wheel
• a brake drum lying on the ground (that I had simply omitted to refit and that was the cause of all this new grief)
• 2 little pistons poking so far out of either side of that brake cylinder that they were both at angles and JAMMED SOLID like that!
• a little bit of piston-seal-lip bulging out like a pile on an anus (not that I study many of those I assure you)

Hey. But I'm getting better ... I didn't even swear..

It took me two hours more to fix all that. (And BTW I was in no mood to take silly photos of the mess.) Bloody hell... I was even working by torchlight and leadlamp by the time I got to putting in fresh fluid and bleeding out the air!!

And that brake job (even apart from my stuff up) had already become one of the hardest I've ever tackled. Look at these silly C-clips. I had to spread them in order to get them off and then squeeze them up again with vice grips to get them back in place on the new shoes:

(I had taken photos of the shoe-replacement job to help my son because he has a similar car.)

So anyway ... When one makes really silly stuff ups like this, how can one possibly think of oneself as being in any way "above the norm"!

Where do I start on this .........Rudi

Never mind where you start Rudi.... I got you started and that's the key thing here..............

 

[lostmarbles]

Cripes. Just checked my emails and a friend over here in New Zealand just sent me this link:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/skC8u4Ok0Kg?rel=0

It is a must-watch for any off-road nut... (But I guess it's already appeared on ih8mud because that's where all the world's off-road-nuts chat ... Maybe I just haven't noticed it?)

 

[fj401978]

Tom, I love reading your posts/rants/ramblings...what ever you want to call them. Not only is there lots of technical content to be learned from them, they are highly entertaining as well! Shucks, I will read your posts even if they are about diesels (of which I have none) simply because you crack me up...I have never taken or considered your writings to be 'superior' to anyone! Please don't change...heck, you even get Rudi to yondering, and I enjoy reading his posts too!

Skip

 

[handcannon]

Tom, I love reading your posts/rants/ramblings...what ever you want to call them. Not only is there lots of technical content to be learned from them, they are highly entertaining as well! Shucks, I will read your posts even if they are about diesels (of which I have none) simply because you crack me up...I have never taken or considered your writings to be 'superior' to anyone! Please don't change...heck, you even get Rudi to yondering, and I enjoy reading his posts too!

Skip

X2 on this post!

That you tube video was quite interesting! Was that filmed in South America? I saw a TV program a few years back about the "Road of Death" in South America, the Chilean Andes if my memory is correct. That road looks exactly like the video you posted. I don't remember how many miles long that road is, but it is a two way road. Can you imagine meeting on-coming traffic on something like that? Of course it's not all that narrow, there are many places where it was wide enough for two trucks to just barely be able to pass without needing to look for bump outs in the road.

Don

 

[lostmarbles]

Tom, I love reading your posts/rants/ramblings...what ever you want to call them. Not only is there lots of technical content to be learned from them, they are highly entertaining as well! Shucks, I will read your posts even if they are about diesels (of which I have none) simply because you crack me up...I have never taken or considered your writings to be 'superior' to anyone! Please don't change...heck, you even get Rudi to yondering, and I enjoy reading his posts too!
Skip

X2 on this post!
That you tube video was quite interesting! Was that filmed in South America? I saw a TV program a few years back about the "Road of Death" in South America, the Chilean Andes if my memory is correct. That road looks exactly like the video you posted. I don't remember how many miles long that road is, but it is a two way road. Can you imagine meeting on-coming traffic on something like that? Of course it's not all that narrow, there are many places where it was wide enough for two trucks to just barely be able to pass without needing to look for bump outs in the road.
Don

Thanks Skip & Don.

(I have noticed you following my posts Skip. Without a bit of humour everything tends to get tedious I reckon. LOL And I never shy away from making a fool of myself.)

That video was taken on the Kishtwar Kailash Mountain in the Indian Himalayas. Apparently it's the access to a mountain-climbing base-camp which explains where the money has come from to build it.

With the winds and rainfall in this country such a road would be impossible to keep open but I'm guessing the weather is less wild there. (They don't call this area the "roaring forties" for nothing.)



(PS. Now I can't wait for the next episode from Rudi.)

 

[bj40green]

(PS. Now I can't wait for the next episode from Rudi.)

Be patient my friend, I'm busy with other things like building a ramp for our dog. It's almost ready, just some finishing up to do.

Maybe later this evening (my time)

Rudi

 

[bj40green]

Back again......
First a little note. In posting #36 you mixed up the P43T and P45T sockets.
P45T is the older round model and P43T is the newer/present model with 3 protruding "flaps".
[edited because of typo's, thanks Tom]

Having said this, I did a little research on the sealed beams headlights and found some nice reading stuff. Here we go....

An interesting story about the history of the headlights, the differences and requirements between Europe and the USA in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlamp
A little excerpt from this story:
The standardized 7-inch (178 mm) round sealed beam headlamp was introduced in 1940, and was soon required for all vehicles sold in the United States. Britain, Australia and other Commonwealth countries, as well as Japan, also made extensive use of 7-inch sealed beams. With some exceptions from Volvo and Saab, this headlamp size format was never widely accepted in continental Europe, leading to different front-end designs for each side of the Atlantic for decades.

The first halogen lamp for vehicle headlamp use, the H1, was introduced in 1962 by a European consortium of bulb and headlamp makers. Shortly thereafter, headlamps using the new light source were introduced in Europe. Initially these were effectively prohibited in the US, where sealed beam headlamps were required. In 1978, sealed beam headlamps with internal halogen burners became available for use in the United States. Halogen sealed beams now dominate the sealed beam market, though it is considerably smaller than it was before replaceable-bulb composite headlamps returned to the US in 1983.

And another interesting story about the sealed beams here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealed_beam
A little excerpt from this story:
Sealed beam headlamps were introduced in the United States in 1939, and became mandatory from the following year until the 1984 model year. Cars prior and subsequent to that date could have a variety of shapes of headlamps, using any of a wide variety of replaceable bulbs. Halogen sealed beam headlamps appeared on U.S. cars in 1978 to enable halogen technology under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, which at the time required all headlamps to be of sealed beam construction; eventually halogen sealed beams came to dominate the sealed beam lamp market.

The limited range of standardized sealed beam headlamp sizes and shapes restricted styling options for automobiles. Replaceable-bulb headlamps provide the regulated light distributions while allowing greater design and engineering freedom.

Now if I summarize this a bit, I come to the following conclusion:
- The sealed beam was in the beginning the big version of the R2 light bulb and later the Halogen version. The socket didn't change and you could replace the "old" incandescent sealed beams for halogen sealed beams.
But this change from incandescent to halogen didn't fly for the non-sealed beams. To prevent bulb exchange the socket changed from P45T to P43T because the halogen H4 version produced more heat than the incandescent R2 bulb and that was bad for the reflector. [edited]

- European (and later the Japanese) car makers had all the freedom in headlight design all based on a single light bulb. Governments and other authorities could set all kind of regulations and requirements for headlights. Over the years Europe defined a number of specs for headlights. To name a few; maximal wattage, dip angels for low and high beam, deflection to the shoulder of the road to better see pedestrians and bicyclist, deflection to the right and up (or to the left and up for the UK) for better seeing the road signs.

- USA car manufacturers had no choice in headlight design. Headlights were designed around a round or rectangular sealed beam. This sealed beam was introduced in 1939 and became mandatory in 1940 until the 1984 model year as I read it.

- European car manufacturers like VW, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Ford (Germany and UK), Fiat, Peugeot, outsourced most of their electrical components (headlights, ignition, etc.) to companies like Bosch (Germany)and Lucas (UK) to name a few.
So while the development of the headlights in Europe progressed over the years, the American headlight design stood still for almost 44 years. How much improvements can (and will) a manufacturer make on a sealed beam if there are no requirements from the government or vehicle department? I couldn't find them.

- Add to this, all the copy cat (aftermarket) manufacturers, the still big demand for replacement sealed beams (millions or maybe trillions of cars are sold with sealed beams), the lack of improvements during 44 years, rant, rant, rant.... and you end up with sealed beams in 2014 which are inferior to any other headlight which is based on a H4 light bulb.

For the next few days..... I'm hiding under my desk, go in hibernate mode and wait to see who I pissed off with this.

Greetings from a warm and sunny Costa Rica.

Rudi

Billboard on the road to the airport: ► "Costa Rica is Toyota territory"

 

[lostmarbles]

In posting #36 you mixed up the P43T and P45T sockets....

Yes. I did!

And that is just the type of major stuff-up that makes me so critical of other people's posts on the Web too.

Thank you soooo much.. (This is one of key reasons why I wanted to prod you into casting your critical eyes over what I've written.)

I've now corrected that post (and another one too where I found I had that same swapped base-identification-code appearing at least 3 times)..

....P43T is the older round model and P45T is the newer/present model with 3 protruding "flaps". ...

But unfortunately you yourself have taken my lead and now fallen immediately into the very same trap Rudi! haha

P43T is the base code for my newer H4 bulbs.

Confusing isn't it?

Our subconscious brains (that are fully aware that the number 45 comes AFTER the number 43) must be auto-correcting our typing!!!!

...An interesting story about the history of the headlights, the differences and requirements between Europe and the USA in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlamp
A little excerpt from this story:
The standardized 7-inch (178 mm) round sealed beam headlamp was introduced in 1940, and was soon required for all vehicles sold in the United States. Britain, Australia and other Commonwealth countries, as well as Japan, also made extensive use of 7-inch sealed beams. With some exceptions from Volvo and Saab, this headlamp size format was never widely accepted in continental Europe, leading to different front-end designs for each side of the Atlantic for decades.

The first halogen lamp for vehicle headlamp use, the H1, was introduced in 1962 by a European consortium of bulb and headlamp makers. ..

Hold it right there..

I'm not sure this info is correct at all.. (or maybe I'm just misinterpreting because not all H1, H2 etc bulbs are equal ... and maybe they're not even referring to bulbs at all here because what in fact is a "lamp"?)

My research (after reading a lot and also REJECTING a lot) suggests that when the halogen H4 bulb was introduced (being dual-filament and with the P43T base and looking similar to the ones I just bought) into mass-produced vehicles back in the early 80s, its predecessors (that were already in such use and apparently labelled H1, H2 and H3) had NOT been halogen.

But the situation is extremely complicated.

For instance:

• are we talking single-filament or dual-filament?
• you can buy an H1 HID kit off eBay right now so what's this telling us?

So maybe we'd best forget trying to get to the bottom of the history to avoid getting bogged down.

....

But this change from incandescent to halogen didn't fly for the non-sealed beams. To prevent bulb exchange the socket changed from P43T to P45T because the halogen H4 version produced more heat than the incandescent R2 bulb and that was bad for the reflector. ....

Titch titch....

Your subconscious is controlling your fingers on the keyboard again Rudi

P43T is the later-style halogen H4 bulb base.

...So while the development of the headlights in Europe progressed over the years, the American headlight design stood still for almost 44 years. How much improvements can (and will) a manufacturer make on a sealed beam if there are no requirements from the government or vehicle department? I couldn't find them.

- Add to this, all the copy cat (aftermarket) manufacturers, the still big demand for replacement sealed beams (millions or maybe trillions of cars are sold with sealed beams), the lack of improvements during 44 years, rant, rant, rant.... and you end up with sealed beams in 2014 which are inferior to any other headlight which is based on a H4 light bulb. ...

You can't blame America Rudi. We, over here in New Zealand and Australia, allow these poorly designed sealed beams to be used on our roads willy nilly too...

But I've got what I wanted out of you anyway.....

We both seem to agree that the design and performance of the 7"/178mm sealed-beam dual-filament headlights on the market do not stand up to any sort of objective scrutiny.



PS. Do your beautiful Bosch lights take exactly the same P43T bulb as my Cibies? ... Edit: Just went back to look at your earlier pics and I see they do indeed.

PPS. I think that big-glassed bulb shown in the pic from that 1983 land cruiser owners manual (that I posted earlier) might be a non-halogen dual-filament P45T-base bulb (and as such perhaps might be designated as being "an H3 bulb" too)?

Here's that same pic again:

 

[bj40green]

Thanks Tom for your sharp eye as ever. I edited both lines so that's cleaned up.
The funny part is that I make notes while searching and on my pad I wrote; H3, P43T, 3 flaps, long shaped.
So yes, our mind places 43 before 45 while in this case it's reversed.

As far as I have figured it out, is that;
H1 was the first single filament, halogen light bulb for car head lights.
H2 is a single filament halogen light bulb used in the rally and heavy truck industry for additional light(s) but is also used for motor bike head lights.
H3 is a single filament halogen light bulb used mainly in fog lights but also in some high beam head lights.
H4 is a dual filament halogen light bulb for combination head lights.
H7 is..............

Pffffft, my hard disk (I refer here to my brain capacity) is almost full.

The light bulb shown in your manual is a R2 P45T (halogen) as far as I can see it.

Lamp or bulb? Depends on the language. I'm from Holland and in Dutch we say lamp but we also use the word "lamp" for an armature or fixture because it uses a lamp. Ceiling lamp, wall lamp, floor lamp. So I always have to pay extra attention when my mind says lamp but I have to write bulb.

About blaming America..... now I'm going on slippery ice but here it is;
Countries, government, industries, whatever have a tendency to follow "somebody else" even when they know that it's not 100% to their satisfaction. So America set the standard for the use of sealed beams and that was easy for other countries to follow even when they knew......

To round it off, I was writing a very long text about this last "following somebody else" subject but I deleted it.
It's all stuff from the past and nowadays we're happy that most equipment is (almost) worldwide compatible.

It's late again. Time for a or

Rudi

 

[CRBJ40]

Tom, you can update you headlight wiring adding a relay without cutting or modifying the OEM wires. It would be an almost (you have to build it) plug and play job, using a dual type relay (fuse holder built in), 2 H4 female connectors, 1 H4 male connector, some wires+ring connectors, soldering and shrinking tubing.

 

[lostmarbles]

Tom, you can update you headlight wiring adding a relay without cutting or modifying the OEM wires. It would be an almost (you have to build it) plug and play job, using a dual type relay (fuse holder built in), 2 H4 female connectors, 1 H4 male connector, some wires+ring connectors, soldering and shrinking tubing.

Thanks CRBJ40..

I may decide to you down this route in the future and if I do this will be very useful...

 

[bj40green]

No mention of S2. 2 typo's in 1 instruction manual.

Rudi

 

[CRBJ40]

No mention of S2. 2 typo's in 1 instruction manual.

Rudi

I noticed that......I copied the image from the eBay seller.....
This one is the wiring diagram

And this one the relay

 

[lostmarbles]

Update:

I've been running the new pair of Halogen sealed beams for the last month and a half.

And right now I've just taken a hammer to them ... (rather than onsell them to another unsuspecting motorist).

It cost me over a $100 to get them from Australia where I thought I might finally be onto quality units because the eBay seller specialised in classic cars and claimed to stock quality.

My aim was to get at least some use from them before switching to my Cibies (that I purchased soon after starting this thread because the responses soon made me realise that dumping sealed beams forever was ultimately the only sensible way to go).

The problem with these latest sealed beams surfaced only a week or so ago after I took my BJ40 out on the open road at night. Embarrassingly, this resulted in more than 50% of oncoming cars high-beaming me...

Driving around my place at night didn't appear to be a problem because all the roads near me have at least some form of street lighting... But at the top of the South Island (where I went a couple of weeks ago) it's a different story and that's why I only learnt then that the stray light from these sealed beams was completely unacceptable.

Even without getting the message from oncoming traffic, I could still see I had a problem because on low beam my lights were brightly illuminating every single street sign way off to either side of the road (picking up their reflective paint) making it look like I was always on high beam. (Except if I switched to high beam ...... everything was even brighter still and with an even longer beam-reach.)

So both New Zealand and Australia clearly have a problem with our markets flooded with unacceptable garbage (as far as 7" sealed beam headlights are concerned).

So my advice is, if you experience the failure of a sealed beam headlight in this part of the world, don't waste your money on buying replacemnts (as I've been doing) .. but go straight to some decent lights that take common H4 bulbs (as I've now done by running Cibie CIB082441 drive-on-the-left-side-of-the-road units).

Anyway here's the reason:

Compare that to this decent H4 bulb (that I'm using in my Cibies) that has a shield beneath the low beam element (and other differences that improve performance):

Hopefully posting this will save others from wasting their time and money on poor quality sealed beams..



PS. I'm describing my latest Cibie CIBO82441 lights as "drive-on-the-left-side-of-the-road" because I know most ih8mud members drive on the other side (and I don't want any of these people to make the mistake of buying the exact same lights).

 

[JohnnyC]

You've seen the light

Welcome to the world of H4 ... Everything is so much clearer here

 

[White Stripe]

So how do you like the new cibies?

 

[fj401978]

Lol...Tom, you crack me up dude ...taking a hammer to your bulbs...lollol

 

[lostmarbles]

So how do you like the new cibies?

I already get the impression they're superior to any lights I've ever run before WS. But I really need to run them for a good while before trying to give a valid report. (I would be extremely surprised if I end up taking a hammer to them! )

I immediately knew I had a "stray light problem" with those Halogen sealed beams and pointed the headlights down to the max to try and compensate.

I'll get the best idea of how my Cibies perform when I'm back driving on the open road where there's no street lighting. Then I'm sure I'll observe much better low-beam and high-beam patterns and be able to tweak them back up to point at a more normal level.

Right now I don't see the point in burning up fuel just for the sake of trialing & adjusting my lights so it'll have to wait until the next time I need to go to on a decent night trip.

Could be as long as 3 months away ....