Headlights Driving Me Crazy

[skylinegtts]

Hey,

my headlights on my 93 R32 are really poor, meaning they arent really bright at all. now my problem is that i cant find what type of glob i have and ive looked everywhere, well nearly everywhere and have had 2 resort to asking. ive searched everywhere aswell.

From wat ive seen my globe has a H1 top with a three prong plug similar to the H3C plug. Ive taken the globe to a few places including repco and supercheap with no success in finding the right one.

does anyone know which one it is?

thanks

stephen

[QRI05E]

How are your head light covers? most plastic types eg. R33 tend to fade and form an oxydation layer.. if your head lights seem dull, try to apply a mild cut/polish onto them and let it dry... then buff hard with clean cloth

Hope this helps

[mad082]

best stuff to make your headlights clear again is mequair's scratch-x. i used it with a buffing pad on a drill and it took 10 seconds per light. and it doesn't matter if you get it on your paint as its actually made for paint. even by hand it works well, just takes a bit longer. i did the first light by hand then thought "bugger this, i'm getting the drill". as for the bulbs, take a pic of them and post it so we can see, as i'm not familiar with the r32 lights. but i know that r33's have h1 for both low and high beams. by what you have described they could be a variation of the h4 bulb. it is still classed as a h4 bulb but is smaller. or they could be a h6.

http://www.narva.com.au/Globes_15.html

have a look through there (at all 6 pages) and see if any match. you will need to take one out to measure it.

[edspaged2]

R32 lights are made of glass so no buffing needed. Ive got Narva Arctic Blues. The code on the bottom reads P/No. 48633BL2, H3 12V 55W. Hope that helps.

[tom_g]

From wat ive seen my globe has a H1 top with a three prong plug similar to the H3C plug.

Thats interesting since H3Cs have a 2 prong plug. Maybe your thinking of H4s with the 3 prong plug.

From what i've heard the earlier R32s have H3Cs and the later cars have H1s. My R32 had H3Cs and i couldn't find any decent globes so got a set of philips H3s and modified the wiring to suit. The lights are still not that good but it was a huge improvement over the original globes.

In a 93 i would have thought you'd have H1s.

[Sean'O]

Gday Mate,

If you have the same problem that i had, i'm guessing its your low beam globes. Your right they are HC3.

dw i went too all the major car places (repco etc) and found them pretty useless.

You have acoupple of options like HID kits or replacing the light assembly but its much cheaper to just get more powerful globes, the ones you most likely have are i think 55W from memory.

If you go to this page - http://www.suvlights.com/index.php?cPath=42 - and have a look at the 85W Philips HC3, they cost around $17 American each (they ended up around $50 Australian to get em' to Victoria).

They are a big improvement, but by no means brilliant , worth having a look.

Cheers

[mad082]

they have them at my local autobarn.

[mad082]

my bad, they are just the plain h3.

[skylinegtts]

thanks for the help guys,

ill get a set of H1s and pop them in and see how they go and also get higher powered globes.

do you think it would be worth it converting to HID?

[wrxhoon]

I think you may find out you get a voltage drop. Check with a multimeter the voltage on the wire that powers the globe ( with lights on), if you drop to say 12 volt or less run a thick wire to the lights and use a rely to switch it on. You will notice the difference when you have 14 volts there it will be like daylight.

[Craved]

how do the globes like being powered by 14 volts though???

do you find they will blow out more often??

[wrxhoon]

how do the globes like being powered by 14 volts though???

do you find they will blow out more often??

No, why would they, if the electrical system works well thats what you should have .. Even the battery has around 13.8 ( fully charged).

[Craved]

possibly since they are stated to run on 12V and they could have issues at higher voltages

[wrxhoon]

possibly since they are stated to run on 12V and they could have issues at higher voltages

Check the voltage on your battery, if its healty it should be around 13.8 then start the car, it should be above 14 volt. Of course the globes will last a lot longer if you only put 6 volt through them but you will have very little light.

[Craved]

yeah i understand the volatges etc .. just if your your burning the element hotter at a higher voltage, i would be expecting their lifetime to be reduced as well..

just weighing up the extra brightness with rewiring the lights etc, to just installing the 60 or 70 watt globes to start with.

[wrxhoon]

just weighing up the extra brightness with rewiring the lights etc, to just installing the 60 or 70 watt globes to start with.

Even if you used 100 watt globes they wont be as bright as the 55's because you still have the problem (voltage drop)

[MANWHOR3]

jerry, i used to find that my globes blew a lot more often after I redid the wiring. I did it properly, nothing wrong. Was fused, relayed everything. I went overkill on the wire. The core was 3 mm. hahaha.

I was getting 13.8 v at the light. before the mod, I was getting 12.2.

[MANWHOR3]

I would not install a globe of higher wattage than what is recommended from factory.

I have experiences from 2 separate cars where 100 watt globes have stuffed the headlight:

car 1 - lancer. melted the wiring plug. also caused the reflective stuff from the headlight to peel over the course of about 6 months. The car was brand new.

car 2 - r32- caused the projector to 'go off'. It went from being cloudy to clear, and the light that it put out was about half of the other projector.

I personally wouldn't do it.

[wrxhoon]

jerry, i used to find that my globes blew a lot more often after I redid the wiring. I did it properly, nothing wrong. Was fused, relayed everything. I went overkill on the wire. The core was 3 mm. hahaha.

I was getting 13.8 v at the light. before the mod, I was getting 12.2.

Let me guess, Chinese globes? They are crap. I had German globes at home ( 12volt downlights) , after 10 years use some started to go. I bought a pack (10) chinese globes because they were only a couple$ each ( the original German globes cost me about $10 each) to my surprise the new globe burned out after about a month!!

I did a re-wire job on my old 33GTR, i also made it so the low beam stay on when i switch to high beam, very bright light and no problem burning globes. Don't forget they are designed to work with the cars voltage ( about 14 V), when wires get old and corroded they have more resistance so you have more voltage drop.

[MANWHOR3]

Nah, they were narvas/phillips/osrams - all the same thing.

maybe it was just pot luck (or shall we say bad luck). I only blew 2 globes, then switched out to hid, so i never knew for sure. The hid haven't blone yet, so I dunno....