Are you old enough to remember the days of sealed beam headlamps?
* Cost a couple of dollars
* Only three types (your car had a pair of 7 inch lamps or two sets of 5 inch lamps.
* With just a Philips screw driver you could replace one in two or three minutes top.
* If they needed adjustment, that same Philips screwdriver did it in less than a minute.
Now:
* it seems some headlights are almost impossible to change yourself.
* They are covered with some sort of very expensive plastic that will discolor and haze over in a few years.
* There is little or no standardization
* On some of them a replacement can be $50.00 or more.
The automakers (you know them, they are making such great decisions that their CEO and making millions running them into the ground.) Convinced the regulators to allow them to use all these fancy lights with, among others, the argument that having the lights closer to the line of sight of the driver they would provide better light (that is true) but then did not bother to keep them in the preferred position.
How about writing to your congressmen and telling them you want to return to better lighting.
BTW a true E-code sealed beam headlamp can provide fantastic lighting when properly aimed and located in the proper position on the car.
“Are you old enough to remember the days of sealed beam headlights?”
Hey, I’m old enough to remember cars that didn’t have sealed beam headlights. My Dad’s 1939 Chevrolet didn’t have sealed beam headlights. I remember him installing a conversion kit to convert the headlights to sealed beam about 1946. Sealed beam headlights were introduced in 1940 in cars made in the United States. Until the 4 headlight system was introduced in 1958, the same sealed beam unit fit everything.
I agree with you about the sealed beam headlights. However, I’m old fashioned and would like to see cars with emergency cranks so that we could dispense with jumper cables. I’d also prefer the heater in a box under the dashboard so that it would be easy to replace the heater core.
Sorry, after 183,000 miles and 11 years, my 98 Civic still has the original bulbs in the all the lamps. I like the reliability and convenience of my headlamps and signal lamps the way they are now…and I am old enough to remember sealed beam headlamps. The ones for my 85 Buick were often filled with water. Who needs that?
Nah, I can replace the bulbs on my Mustang or Bronco in 5 minutes tops. In my limited experience with sealed beam units, in a 1974 F-100 and a 1974 TR6, I can say that the light produced by those wasn’t that great. The TR6’s headlights are particularly bad, but that can probably be chalked up to the fact that they are Lucas units.
I’m with you Joe. Cloudy plastic yuck!
'm old fashioned and would like to see cars with emergency cranks so that we could dispense with jumper cables.
My first car a 1965 Sunbeam Imp had a crank.
“My first car a 1965 Sunbeam Imp had a crank”.
I’ll bet the crank was useful in turning over the engine to adjust the valve clearances or set the ignition point gap. Vehicles are too complicated today. My wife’s 4Runner has 2 wheel drive. If you get stuck, you put it in 4 wheel drive high. If you are still stuck, you put it in 4 wheel drive low. If this doesn’t get you moving, there is a button to push to lock the differentials. If this still doesn’t work, Toyota packs a small bottle of brandy in the glove compartment to keep warm until help arrives. One look under the hood was enough and I polished off the bottle of brandy.
Meguiar’s Plast-X. Yellow headlights go back to clear (mostly) and it also shine/cleans any other plexiglass/plastic surfaces.
Would like to see LEDs engineered into more headlamps…then you’d have a bulb you could pass from one generation to the next.
My bulbs were not that expensive, and it was remove a rubber cap twist pull, replace bulb, push twist rubber cap back on and done. I think it was 8 bucks for one, I didn’t buy a pair, 2 weeks later I wished I had! No complaint.
In 21 years I’ve had to replace the eyes in my '88 Accord once. That was about a 15 minute job. And the bulbs come with new glass in front.
I was pretty happy when sealed beams went away. I had breakage due to road debris and found them more expensive to replace than just the bulbs. The glass or plastic cowling could be slanted so that the pebbles deflected off. The sealed beams at the time were perpendicular to the road and broke at impact. Maybe it’s just the cars we drive (drove).
Sorry, J.E.M., but I’m a TRUE traditionalist, and I favor the return of…carbide headlamps!
Actually, there’s some real advances being made in lighting technology now…LED lights produce vastly more lumens for the same current draw (speaking as someone who’s swapped his 3W halogen bicycle light for a LED…easliy 3X as bright). The current problem is designing sufficiently powerful LEDs at reasonable costs.
If I could swap out my halogens for a reasonably-priced LED drawing about 1/2 the current, I’d do it. (I’d love it even more if LEDs were “universal,” so that I could re-install the halogens when selling the car!)
I’ll bet the crank was useful in turning over the engine to adjust the valve clearances or set the ignition point gap
That was about it. Another odd thing was a remote starter button in the engine compartment.
Actually, there’s some real advances being made in lighting technology now…LED lights produce vastly more lumens for the same current draw (speaking as someone who’s swapped his 3W halogen bicycle light for a LED…easliy 3X as bright).
I would not have anything else on my bicycle. I don’t think the technology is really ready for headlamps yet, but I don’t think it will be long.
This is the only real snag IMO with returning to the old sealed beams. I don’t want to stop progress, but unfortunately almost all changes in automotive headlight design since sealed beams has been negative from a practical perspective IMO.
The only time I was ever impressed by headlight performance was the first time that I drove my Dad’s 1958 Pontiac that had the four 5" round headlight system. Prior to that all that I knew was two 7" headlights but I do recall seeing older headlights prior to sealed beams. We now have a 2008 car with HID headlamps and I am not impressed; they seem nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t believe that the respondents to the original post have known the four 5" round system beginning in the late 1950s and dropped later including Mr. Tridag. Not all cars had them during the late 50s and later as it was possible then to buy a car with two 7" headlights, thus missing experience with the four light setup.
The only thing now that comes close to the four 5" round headlight system that I know of now is my old VW with two square/round large headlights. I can tease the dimmer switch to light both the dims and the brights at the same time to impressively light up the road ahead. Perhaps that was the secret to the old 4 light system, more than one filament lit per side on the high setting.
Sealed beams were cheap to buy and easy to replace and undue breakage from stones were not a problem for me; don’t recall that often happening. At one time there were 7" round sealed beams and that was all until the four 5" setup came into being. Now the headlight replacement situation is a complete mess with little or no commonality as with oil filters, brake pads, air cleaners, fuel filters, tires and even wheel lugnuts.
[i]Joseph, If We Return, Please Don’t Give Me A 6-Volt Volkswagen Beetle (pre-67) Style Headlight Assembly To Keep It In.[/i]
A worse system of goofy spring clips, rubber seals, rusty buckets, corroded sockets, seized screws, and glass lenses has yet to be devised by man.
I saw some upscale euro buggy coming out with LED headlamps advertised in a car mag.
I think it would be interesting to see a comparison of light output, illumination uniformity and spectral performance of the various products over time. I suspect that the reflector designs are improved over the simple type employed in sealed beam lamps and therefore uniformity is improved. Likely, light output is increased and the spectral output better for night vision as well (except on-coming cars!). The only benefit I see is you get new glass with the legacy lamp swap but I haven’t had any trouble with the plastic enclosures yet. They are quite pricey to replace if damaged in an accident.
Aiming those old buckets was no fun, especially in the rust belt. When they came out with those plastic push nuts, they would invariably get brittle with age and crack.
BTW- there were more than three styles of sealed beam lamps- let’s not forget the rectangular versions!
“I would not have anything else on my bicycle. I don’t think the technology is really ready for headlamps yet, but I don’t think it will be long.”
I wouldn’t have anything else embedded in the brim of my LL Bean fishing cap…always there, always bright.
I have several camping head lamps and they are outstanding…You’re right, the reach isn’t there yet, but low speed trail biking is fine.
I’m sure very soon, they will be common on bike helmets.
I remember that the 1939 Chevrolet my Dad owned when I was growing up had an emergency crank and I saw him start the car with the hand crank on several occasions. My Dad also wouldn’t buy a Ford product. When I asked him what he had against Fords, he said that you had to crank them a long time to get them started in cold weather. I didn’t think that was any big deal until I found out that he was talking about the Model T Ford his parents owned that didn’t have an electric starter. Dad had gone to a dance using the Model T and when he and his date came out, he had a hard time cranking the Model T Ford to life. His date left with someone else. I said, “Look on the bright side, Dad. If the Model T had started on the first turn of the crank, you might have married this woman instead of mom and I wouldn’t be here”. He replied, “Now you know what I have against Fords”.
As to your remote starter button in the engine compartment, I had the same thing with my Ford Maverick, except that my remote starter was a pair of pliers I would use to bridge the starter switch to start the engine.