Sh***y Headlights

I've been working nights more lately and noticed, as my wife puts it, that my stuck headlights suck. Is there a better lens that I can put on the car? I do not want to convert to HIDs or LEDs. I just was hoping to find a better lens or brighter standard bulb that could help. It just seems like the light just disperses quickly even on high beam. It's a '91 OCC with factory headlights and the old halogen sealed beams on our '90 OCC and '70 98 seem brighter. Thanks.

Step 1 - Remove bulb from headlight (do not touch glass on bulb
Step 2 - Re-connect to wiring harness (do not touch glass on bulb)
Step 3 - With engine running, turn on headlights
Step 4 - Measure the voltage between the black and colored wires at the back of the bulb
Step 5 - Measure the voltage between the battery positive and the colored wires
Step 6 - measure the voltage between the battery negative and the black wires

This will check to ensure that you don't have a wiring problem, and if you do, locate (roughly) where it is. If there is only 10.8v across the bulb (for example) no lenses or new bulbs will make much difference until you correct the wiring problem.

LEDs are basically plug and play now, so just as easy as changing the regular bulb, and alot brighter from what I've seen.

No need to gear LED headlights in 2022. There is no converting because they look and plug in exactly the same as the glass bulbs. Takes about 30 seconds. I bought a pair off Amazon for cheap. Way brighter than factory and I have aftermarket “smoked” lights. No one flashes me, honks at me and I have had the car behind me and they are no different than the millions of cars out there with factory LED lights.

That said I second the info provided by fix. Look into a set of aftermarket lights like the ones on eBay. Built well and they are very clear. Provide better patterns than the factory stuff as well.

I bought a set on ebay for about $11, and they are simple plug and play. Plenty bright even with yellowed lenses. They light up the street for about a half mile.

I got the new headlights in with the second try LED bulbs in them.  First cheapos had crap pattern, these look to be pretty good but haven't been on road with them yet.  I went with the clear lenses and chrome edge to go with the chrome grille and light color car.  Woody used the black with smoke lenses on his and it looked good with the black grille but wouldn't have looked right on mine, I think. Since this pic I did change the side marker bulb to an amber bulb #24NA so the marker was the correct color with a clear lens.

Also shows new tint which is Suntek CIR ceramic IR blocking in black color.  50% front doors and rear gate and 20% on the rest of the sides.  Stayed legal and decent for seeing out at night.

booster wrote:

I got the new headlights in with the second try LED bulbs in them.  First cheapos had crap pattern, these look to be pretty good but haven't been on road with them yet.  I went with the clear lenses and chrome edge to go with the chrome grille and light color car.  Woody used the black with smoke lenses on his and it looked good with the black grille but wouldn't have looked right on mine, I think.  Since this pic I did change the side marker bulb to an amber bulb #24NA so the marker was the correct color with a clear lens.

Also shows new tint which is Suntek CIR ceramic IR blocking in black color.  50% front doors and rear gate and 20% on the rest of the sides.  Stayed legal and decent for seeing out at night.

You were thinking correctly and made the right choice. Those lights look great on there.

Pix are always useful in evaluating headlights so here are a couple of the new Ebay lamps with midrange cost LED bulbs.  

I ran out of time before the snow so they still need to be adjusted a bit left, particularly the left lamp but height looks to be good.

Low beams


High beams

Looks good, do you have a part # for those lights?

You can get a pair on ebay for about $11-15. Just make sure they are the correct ones to fit your car.

Buickman1 wrote:

Looks good, do you have a part # for those lights?

These are lamp assemblies I got.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/304131261106

And here are the bulbs I got that are in the pic.

LED bulbs

Fred, I did get a set of cheap bulbs from ebay and tried them in the stock lamp assemblies and the new ones.  In both the pattern was very poor and more like a diffuse blob of light than a decent headlight pattern.

I was only referring to the bulbs.

So was I, the lamps are way more expensive than the bulbs. I tried the cheap bulbs in both the OEM and and in the aftermarket lamps and they were very poor pattern.

Mine are fine, and I only paid $8 for a pair.

Fred Kiehl wrote:

Mine are fine, and I only paid $8 for a pair.

You have any pix of the pattern? If good ones can be had for that price, I am sure many would be interested in them.

I will try to get a picture.

Thanks for the link. My current lights look nothing like that.

94Woody wrote:

Thanks for the link. My current lights look nothing like that.

I think a lot of the whole headlight evaluation thing gets down to how you evaluate. I hear way too often about how far that headlights light up things, but that is only a small part of it, especially if they are talking about highly reflective road signs that light up a long ways ahead from very little light.

The road in my pics is probably a near perfect test place, IMO. It is probably 3-500 feet of flat road that has a small ditch and trees on both sides and is a dead end with trees at the end. It actually shows me the stuff that counts. Road illumination, lesser brightness ditch illumination (lots of deer around here), and long throw light with a good cutoff vertically so no wasted light going places you don't need it, like in other driver's eyes.

This combo shown in the pix is probably the best I have ever run across that is not one of the very expensive factory systems, and is even better than my wife's 2009 CRV that I had always been impressed by the lighting quality with only halogen lamps.

It think this will apply to most of the 9004 LED replacement bulbs as they seem to be very similar in construction.  Two LEDs on each side with one forward of the other.

They are mirror image side to side so both furthest out LEDs are back to back.  

This does make it so you could get them turned 180* from the way they want them.

The furthest away from the base LED should be in the 12 o'clock position and the closer ones the base should be at 6 o'clock.  LEDs point to 3 and 9.

Here is an illustration I just ran across.



This may help explain some of the variation of results that seem to happen a lot.

I ended up getting the TYC headlamp and side marker assemblies from Rock Auto and Phillips Night Guide ultra bright halogens. The old assemblies where definitely yellower than I thought compared to the replacements. I had tried polishing them and it never seemed to do much. The new lights are considerably better, not LED bright, but way better.

Old ones on top.