Are LED headlights a worthwhile upgrade?

[Henrius]

You got to admit, one thing that is an improvement with new cars is the power of the headlights. I feel like I am driving blind when driving my classic cars at night.

Ran across a company called Headlight Experts. The sell glass light shells that look like OEM, but have modern LED healights inside. Not cheap! $199 for ONE high and low beam pair. So converting right and left would cost $400!

I am not talking about HIDs (which require a lot more power), but LEDs.

Has anyone tried these? Are they a worthwhile upgrade?

 

[Davea Lux]

If your vehicle has headlight doors, they will not operate with the LED lamps. The circuit that closes the doors when the lights are turned off uses the filaments of the headlights as a ground to close the relay and the doors. For that kind of money, I personally would not make the upgrade. You might want to check the headlight adjustment to see of you can improve the performance. These cars were famous for corroded connections that cause the lights to be dim over time, so check the ground and other connections and clean as necessary.

Dave

 

[Henrius]

If your vehicle has headlight doors, they will not operate with the LED lamps. The circuit that closes the doors when the lights are turned off uses the filaments of the headlights as a ground to close the relay and the doors. For that kind of money, I personally would not make the upgrade. You might want to check the headlight adjustment to see of you can improve the performance. These cars were famous for corroded connections that cause the lights to be dim over time, so check the ground and other connections and clean as necessary.

Dave

Thanks. I will check the contacts. My Fury and Newport do not have concealed headlights. Might start first trying them on my Ford Pinto, which will be cheaper, since it does not have dual headlights.

 

[edbods]

Do you have a headlight relay harness? Probably one of the first upgrades you should ever do on any car (aside from the bulkhead power feed bypass for our mopars); old car headlights were worse than rubbish because they ran all their power through the the firewall, into the headlight switch, then back out and to the lights. And now our cars are more than half a century old, the poor harness has to cope, even worse if you swap out the bulbs for halogens which draw even more power. LEDs mask it because of their significantly higher efficiency, however, they still draw as much power as they can through the harness. But just a relay harness alone makes a huge difference - even regular sealed beam lamps will become much brighter.
I got me a cheap set of H4 and H1 semi-sealed conversion housings. They have glass lenses so they'll never ever fade from UV exposure, and they take H4 bulbs, with H1s for the high beams. Best of both worlds I reckon - if bulb or housing breaks, only one or the other needs to be replaced, instead of both as an assembly. And replacements with glass lenses are cheap and readily available at any retail auto store. Bulbs being halogen are also brighter than older sealed beams (even with the aforementioned relay harness). This also opens up the path to LED retrofits, but if you do this, make sure you get lamps where the diodes match the exact position as the original halogen filaments - if they don't you will blind (and piss off) everyone in front of you, and you'll also wonder why your lights hardly light up the road.

 

[Henrius]

Do you have a headlight relay harness? Probably one of the first upgrades you should ever do on any car (aside from the bulkhead power feed bypass for our mopars); old car headlights were worse than rubbish because they ran all their power through the the firewall, into the headlight switch, then back out and to the lights. And now our cars are more than half a century old, the poor harness has to cope, even worse if you swap out the bulbs for halogens which draw even more power. LEDs mask it because of their significantly higher efficiency, however, they still draw as much power as they can through the harness. But just a relay harness alone makes a huge difference - even regular sealed beam lamps will become much brighter.
I got me a cheap set of H4 and H1 semi-sealed conversion housings. They have glass lenses so they'll never ever fade from UV exposure, and they take H4 bulbs, with H1s for the high beams. Best of both worlds I reckon - if bulb or housing breaks, only one or the other needs to be replaced, instead of both as an assembly. And replacements with glass lenses are cheap and readily available at any retail auto store. Bulbs being halogen are also brighter than older sealed beams (even with the aforementioned relay harness). This also opens up the path to LED retrofits, but if you do this, make sure you get lamps where the diodes match the exact position as the original halogen filaments - if they don't you will blind (and piss off) everyone in front of you, and you'll also wonder why your lights hardly light up the road.

Thanks. Not sure I understand why lights would blind everyone else but hardly light up the road for me. You talking about aim?

Funny that all new cars have headlight relays, and like you said, my Newport headlight wiring connector is about burned to a crisp. Who makes a headlight relay assembly with wiring instructions? Never heard of this upgrade. Yes, I switched to halogens a long time ago which probably helped fry the wiring and connector.

 

[edbods]

Not necessarily aim, but the beam pattern - the reflector is shaped precisely to aim the light exactly the way it should:

The shape is designed around the exact locations of the halogen filaments - if the diodes on the LEDs do not match up the beam pattern will be thrown completely off. Notice in the below pics how the diodes (the little squares) are placed in such a way to replicate the position of a typical halogen bulb's filaments, it even has the glare shield as well in this example:

People will often buy the cheapest aliexpress special (even though aliexpress also has actually decent LED bulbs out there) which just has diodes covering the entire bulb and then wonder why everyone is constantly flashing their high beams at them.
Octane Lighting make one, but you can also make your own which may be better to do if you already have the tools to do so; I got their 4-light harness and while it works, the terminal crimping left something to be desired - there were individual strands of copper filament here and there that weren't crimped down, which would increase resistance and while it still works, maybe I got one made on Friday at 4 PM or something...
And since it was also a universal kit, the wiring may be too short depending on your application. For my 67 Fury, some of the wires were cutting it close with how comfortable I was letting them stretch. There are lots of guides and diagrams online on how to do it yourself, it's pretty straightforward, but can be time-consuming if you're trying to do a proper job.

Funny that all new cars have headlight relays

Relays make perfect sense - they are simply electrically operated switches. Use a small amount of signal current, to control a circuit that carries much larger current. Perfect for easing the strain on our old wiring harnesses. I think the 70s-80s was when manufacturers realised that it wasn't a good idea to run 55-60 watts of power up into the dash and back out so they really started doing headlights properly. It'd be cheaper to just do it once, do it right, than to pay for class action lawsuits around cars burning down.