Glass Headlamps

91White-T · Post by **91White-T** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 6:58 pm

I may be able to get a couple of sets of these from Japan for 90-91s, and wanted to see if anyone here would be interested in buying a set...

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 11:09 pm

only headlamps or corner aswell?

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 11:18 pm

Guys, please don't drive around North American roads with RHD headlights.

LegacyT · Post by **LegacyT** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 11:35 pm

Can't you just take apart the headlight and swap the glass lense on?

Mark

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 11:45 pm

Don't we all wish...

The flutes in the lens are part of the optics. The reflector is simply parabolic and the flutes then re-organize the beam, so to speak. So the bulb, mask, reflector, and lens all work together.

QuickDrive · Post by **QuickDrive** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 12:41 am

vrg3 wrote:Guys, please don't drive around North American roads with RHD headlights.

Why?

Seriously I don't know...

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 12:45 am

I'm sure as I'm typing this so is vrg with a much more detailed description, but oh well. LHD lights are set up so part of the light goes off to the right side of the road, to light up sign's and whatnot, and RHD lights are setup just the opposite, so you lose the sign lighting on the right and shine it into drivers on your left (oncoming traffic) if you switch to RHD lights.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 1:11 am

THAWA wrote:I'm sure as I'm typing this so is vrg with a much more detailed description, but oh well.

Hehe... wouldn't have been a bad bet. :)

THAWA's got it. A good headlamp has a very different beam on the left of the horizontal centerline than on the right.

A good LHD headlamp has fairly long range on the right side, shining above the centerline to light up signs and other stuff coming from off the road. On the left side, it has relatively shorter range; the beam cuts off below the centerline. This way it doesn't shine into oncoming drivers' eyes. That makes a good compromise between good seeing and low glare.

EDM Legacy lights (and 92-94 USDM Legacy lights) have a beam pattern with an upper cutoff that looks something like this:

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               .-'
            .-'
_________.-'

JDM lights have a beam pattern that is a mirror image:

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'-.
   '-.
      '-._________

So, a JDM Legacy lamp used in North America will have limited range on the off-traffic side, while blinding oncoming traffic (to drivers coming towards you it would actually look like you had your high beams on).

This explanation should make it clear why simply aiming the lights differently can't resolve the problem; the JDM beam pattern reaches very high on the left, with no sharp limit on how high it goes. Even if you aimed the lamp low enough to give relatively insignificant above-centerline light on the left, you'd end up with almost no usable light anywhere.

Now, it is possible to eliminate the upward rise, to make the beam cutoff horizontal all the way across. This can be done with a little electrical tape over the correct part of the lens (if you look closely at the flutes on the lens you can see where the rise is created). This is done sometimes by people driving from the UK to France or vice versa. This eliminates the problem of blinding people, but still yields a sub-optimal headlamp, since you get limited seeing distance.

Some types of headlamps (usually projectors) are convertible between LHD and RHD. Unfortunately, BC-BF lights aren't.

Post by **Legacy777** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 1:16 am

There are ways of getting the EDM ones.....it helps if you know someone over there, and get lucky at finding some at a junkyard. I have a set in my posession.....I'll take some pics of everything when I get some more time.....wiring them up will be a little hairy.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 1:19 am

As a temporary solution you can just wire them into your stock wires, and then build the new wiring harness in your spare time. I can make you a pair of plug-and-play adaptors if you like.

Post by **Legacy777** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 1:23 am

I don't mind doing the wiring....what's going to take the most work, and I'll do that first is the levelers

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 1:52 am

what's wrong/different about them?

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 1:59 am

Stock wires are pretty shoddy for headlights, so if you're upgrading headlights you might as well upgrade the wiring harness.

Josh's EDM lights also have leveling motors (so the driver can adjust vertical aim slightly from inside the car -- this capability is required in Europe), so he has to do a bunch of extra wiring for those.

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 2:09 am

maybe I'm just a sucker for gadgets and trinkets and little gizmo's and the like but that sounds sweet

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 2:11 am

Yeah, it is nice. You can compensate for having a trunk full of car parts and stuff like that.

I was thinking of trying to make a system for USDM lights like that, with a high-torque gearhead motor driving the aiming screws or something. It'd probably be too hard to do it well, though, since you need to keep both lights aimed at the same height and stuff.

91White-T · Post by **91White-T** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 5:41 am

I can probably get corners too.

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 7:08 am

I'd definately be down for the corners, and if you can the sidemarker lights from the post-facelift.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 7:41 am

Too bad you couldn't adjust the beam horizontally or rig something up so they turn with the steering wheels.

Steve

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 1:55 pm

Steve - I think VW/Audi was working on an adaptive headlight system a few years ago that basically did that. I think it had several separate reflectors that it could aim independently, and based on input from the steering angle sensor, the attitude sensor, and the wheel speed sensors it predict where you needed more light and aim the reflectors that way. Haven't heard anything about it since, though, so I don't know if they ever got it to work right.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 7:09 pm

Several cars actually offer this as an option now (Citroen had it in the '60's and some prewar cars had auxiliary lights that did this, too. Cord L29, for example). I think the Touareg is one of the new cars with them. I just wanted to know if there was a way to do this on the cheap for us self-sufficient folks. Some king of linear potentiometer on the rack to control their direction, maybe.

Steve

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 9:48 pm

It could be done... The hardest part to find would probably be motors strong enough to turn the aiming screws that also have encoders in them.

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 10:30 pm

I could get the motors easy from what I used at work, but programming and getting a controller, driver, etc. would be too much work. I'm thinking of only a three-position setting; left - center - right by just driving a standard motor one way or the other froma an input on the rack. Steering angle actuation vs. headlight angle limits would need to be considered. Probably too much BS, so I just aim my fog lights out to the sides a little for corners.

Steve

NuwanD · Post by **NuwanD** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 11:36 pm

how much should i expect to pay for jdm corners?

THAWA · Post by **THAWA** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 11:43 pm

I dunno but lemme know if you find someone that can get more than 1 pair

NuwanD · Post by **NuwanD** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 12:01 am

I may be able to get some from overseas, but i'm curious as to whether it's worth the cost after shipping/duty/taxes to bring some here. How much would be a reasonable price for the corners?... I can work backwards from that and see it if is cost effective to ship 'em over.

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Glass Headlamps

Glass Headlamps