Hot Rods 1926 Model T Headlights- Conversions?

tired of "traditional only" on a traditional only site?

 

I have LED bulbs in my house, but want sealed beams on my car. I'm not enamored with the current state of automotive lighting technology. This is just my curmudgeonly opinion, your "view" of the world may differ.
-Dave

 

I'll say it again, why not just contact the folks you bought the set up from and let them help you out....unless that's not Traditional

 

SHEESH! Stirred the shit! All I wanted was to be able to see at night. At the risk of "poking the bear", I'll try this again. After reading the helpful posts here and doing a lot of non HAMB research, I have come to the conclusion that it is the lenses that are the problem. It is not an aiming issue. There is no position of the lights that give adequate light in both high and low beam mode. The T lenses seem to diffuse the light instead of focusing it. I have tried the 25' from the garage door technique. I have had it out on dark country roads and stopped to readjust the lights a dozen times. It has to be the lenses. I like the original, large "clown car lights". I am going to make my own conversion for a 7" halogen sealed beam headlight into the original T bucket and bezel, thus eliminating the original lenses. I have found a conversion kit to do this, but at 170bucks, I'll make my own thank you, as a couple of guys suggested. As far as calling Mac's, not particularly fond of them. I don't think they have the solution anyway, and I've had the lights a long time.
Oh! and on the reflections, I have installed a curtain in the back window. That knocks down a lot of them.

 

See post #53. This is not a traditional forum anymore, it hasn't been for a while. Less than 10% of the current active membership has any interest in traditional cars. Its a street rod forum in drag. But it needs to come out of the closet.

 

Without me doing any real research, you said that they appear to be aimed too high or too low. Is it possible to maybe rotate the lenses so instead of them going in that direction, they do just the opposite? I'm sure you're on the right track regarding the problem is the lens, but maybe just rotating them 1/4 of the way round might make them more acceptable.
Worth a shot.

 

Hi Jaw22w
I have a basically stock '25 coupe (converted to 12 volts) that had, as expected, terrible lights. They weren't very bright (tarnished silvered reflectors). I replaced the reflectors with new reproduction units (from Snyders) that have the proper parabola and are aluminized (the process used in state-of the-art astronomical research telescopes) rather than chromed. The lights ended up superbly bright, but the modern 6V and 12V replacement bulbs have their filaments positioned incorrectly for proper high-beam and low-beam operation, so I was getting a lot of high-beam flashes from oncoming drivers. When placed in stock Model T bulb sockets, modern bulbs' high and low filaments end up being side-by-side rather than one atop the other, which meant the low beam was just shifted sideways rather than lowered. I fixed this by purchasing a set of reproduction sockets, cutting off their brass focusing tabs, and using my dremel to cut new tabs on the tops of the sockets (thereby rotated 90 degrees from the old tab). I bent the new tab up at a right angle, drilled and tapped a new hole for the focusing screw, and installed them in my original T headlight buckets, along with the modern bulbs and the focusing screws and springs, making sure that the high and low-beam wires went to the proper socket terminals. The high beam filaments are still in the center, as they should be, and the low beam filaments are now above the high beam filaments. Standard model T focusing, as detailed in the Model T service manual, works, and my headlights now have proper high (bright) and low (dim) beams. No more irritated oncoming night-time drivers!

Regards,

Carl