Sealed Beam vs. Upgraded Lens and Reflector Headlights

Hey guys,

I'm tryin like hell to thin my parts hoard out. I need to lighten my load. To that end, I have a dilemma, and I'm looking for opinions. I know those are always in supply here.

My 39 GMC pickup project is moving at a much more glacial pace than I want, but I'm trying to at least organize it. I have been slowly parting out and s****ping bits and pieces of my 40 GMC parts truck as well.

39 still used the lens and reflector headlights, and 40 moved to sealed beams.

To that end, the headlight buckets for the two years look identical until you pull the trim rings off. They will not interchange because of flange for the sealed beam bulb.

I MUCH prefer the look of the lens and reflector setup, both for authenticity and because they just look period. I need to have my reflectors silvered and the place that does that say they can adapt them for modern high power bulbs at the same time.

Does anyone have experience with the old lens and reflectors combined with newer brighter bulbs? How do they perform? I have an NOS sealed beam conversion kit I picked up a few years ago, but it's just not the same as the real deal sealed beam bucket.

I'm contemplating selling the 40 buckets. They are a one year only bucket and they are in great shape... I'm only concerned that if I sell them now and collect a little much needed cash that I'm gonna kick myself later on down the line... Yet that might just be my inner hoarder fighting back.

Whaddaya think? Keep the sealed beam buckets for backup or have faith the upgraded lens/reflector combo is gonna be plenty good enough and sell off the extra parts?

 

I have run them both ways. Some cars had better lenses than others buit pretty much all of them had flood lights at best and when you pop a halogen bulb in there you just end up with a brighter flood. They don't focus the light as well as a modern light.

If I were going to throw a pair of Pencil beams on there for runnng lights then I would stay with the older light but if I wanted to drive it at night at speed and was not going to ad an auxilary light of some sort then I would probably want to go with a seal beam.

That is my thoughts on it.

What period ar you shooting for and are you going to go full upgrade for the period or are you going after the low dollar hot rodded look. That also makes a difference in your choice I believe.

 

Well, I like the look of the pre-sealed beam headlights. They just scream 30's to me. I could add some driving lights from the 50's to add some focus down low if that would significantly help. In fact I am pretty sure I have a good set out in the shop that could be adapted. As far as what period I'm going for... The truck is meant to appear mostly stock. The previous owners didn't really change anything about the suspension or body at all. They just put the Rocket olds motor, trans and rear end in it and went to town. I'm probably gonna keep it that way. Somewhat of a sleeper visually. It's not gonna scream hotrod from a distance...

 

what ****** said is true, i run a '39 gmc with restored original lights. i upgraded to a modern holagen bulb that are so bright you can not look at them but i still needed to add a set of fog lights to drive at night safely. the lenses spread the light out too wide, great for hunting rac****s, or reading house numbers, but you can not see what is in the road ahead of you.
so in my opinion keep the originals and sell the seal beams to me. Ted

 

Hmmmm... This is all good stuff... The sealed beam conversion kit could be had pretty cheap! I'm starting to think I should hold on to those 40 buckets.
tb33anda3rd, I'd love to see pictures of your truck!

 

I am actually running a pair of 30 aux lights on my OT parts chaser. They still had the 6V fog lights in them which I changed out for a pair of later spots (5 mile reflective rateing). My headlights are high lights are ahliogen floods (yellow lows and white highs). Its an old desert racer trick, bright floods over pencil beams (spots). The floods let you see everything up close real clear and the spots let you see what is comming up.

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=671397
there is a picture on this thread but i will look for a front shot.

 

sorry bad photo

 

*****en! I love those trucks. What series is it? What are you running for the motor? My original intent with mine was to put a 302 6 in it since it's a direct bolt in for the 228, but I got bit by the rocket bug since it was already there, and way too much had been done to get it in there.

 

despite owning and driving it for over 25 years i do not know what model it is. i upgraded the motor to a '82 292 bored 60 over [close to 302cu.in.] the ****** is a 350 auto, with a posi rear out of a '69 chevy. i put 6 lug disc brakes on it. was my only transportation for years, it hauled lots of stuff including two house moves. she is showing her age.

 

That's great. I love that it's a working truck. It's rare to see one with a grille that straight, or even complete... Or even there at all. The model number is located in two places on the truck. If the ID plate still exists in tact it's bolted to the firewall, inside, right in the center. If not, it's stamped in the right front frame rail as part of the complete truck serial number. It's on the outside, almost in line with the front cross member, or forward of the axle. You'd probably have to do some wire wheeling to expose it but it'll start with AC101 or 102 or 152. I don't think it's a 1 ton. Wheel base doesn't look long enough.

 

the id tag is on the inside of the firewall, i don't remember it. thanks for the compliments, the grill is made from three "tops" lot's of welding and body work. i found two more, one with a perfect top, and one with a perfect bottom that i will "someday" make a good grill and have it rechromed. how is your grill? and what model do you have?

 

I started with two trucks, a 39 and a 40. 39 had a grille in it but it was beat up and hand a lot of farmerized welds holding it together. The 40 was missing the grille completely. Both trucks had beat up chin pieces. Found a real nice donor chin on a core support from a 1.5 ton truck, and Im going graft that onto a good core support I found a couple months back. I found as near a perfect grille as I am likely to find after a few years of searching. The chrome is even p***able on it. Mine's an AC101, which is a short bed half ton.

 

wow! great find. i saw one that looked like that except the bottom bar and "chin" were smashed back in the '90's at the truck nationals in carlisle. the guy had it marked $900 and sold it.

 

I paid $1200 for this one and felt lucky. I saw an NOS military (no chrome) go for $2,000 and I've seen some worse than this but complete go for more than I paid for this one. This one is not perfect but you'd have to get right up on it to find the flaws. I won't rechrome this one until it really gets bad. It looks better in pictures than it is but still... I had been collecting individual bars for about three years, including the crank hole housing and the short bars when a buddy offered this one to me. It was his spare! So, I still have all the extra bars and I will probably keep them. Just too damn hard to find the parts for this grille.

 

I keep forgetting to ask about which year crank you are rebuilding? I was worried you might have one that does not have a hole for the trans pilot bushing?

 

since i work this truck, i always felt, the minute i put the perfectly chromed grill on, some dope would back into me. or a deer would jump out in front. the painted one, has held up well despite not being kept under cover until recently.
was there a difference in '39 and '40 gmc grills? i know chevy truck grills were different with '39 having an extra bar.

 

All I know for sure is that the crank was originally from a 303 according to the numbers.

39 and 40 GMC are identical. Luckily. That makes it about 1% easier to find parts.

 

Then you are all set, AT as well as sticks had the same hole ...prior to 56. I got lucky with my 56 motor as it came from a cheapie base model 88 that only came with the 55 type AT, and it had the same bushing as stick.

I dread the day I end up with an undrilled one.

 

Oh thank God... I was scared for minute there! Thanks Frank!

 

Great thread! I forgot it all started over headlights. I'd put the best looking ones on the truck, how much night time driving will you ever do? Bob

 

Yeah, we did get a little off topic... I am going to go with plan A and run the lens and reflector headlights and I probably will add some sealed driving/fog lamps down low for a little extra. We'll see. You're right, it depends on how much night driving I end up doing. Hard to tell... I'll keep the 40 buckets though for now. Being one year only parts, I know I'll kick myself in the *** for not having them sometime down the line.

 

Is the "Rocket 8' a straight 8? If so does your truck have a longer hood than to one on Ted's with the 6?

 

No, it's an Olds 324... I did a little photoshop work on my avatar. It's a combination of the cover of the 39 GMC Master Parts Book, the 39 GMC Operators Manual, a 49ish Olds ad, and a logo off of the side of an old nutcracker called the "Rocket"... Wanted to make something that looked like it could have been offered with the Olds motor. Actually GMC big trucks did use the 324 and the 371, but that was in the mid-late 50's. So its' the same cab and front clip as Ted's.

 

if you do run the original lenses, make a stainless steel divider to block off the top part of the lens to stop the light from going up. it helped. Ted

 

Napco, Are replacement lens' for the "39 lights easy to find. If you ever pick up a rock hit and break a lens, it may become an issue. Save the seal beams for back up.

.............Jack

 

I've had very good experience with upgraded original lights on my '38 Ford pickup. Bear in mind that sealed beams are now obsolete tech, and cars have gone back to bulb and reflector, albeit with halogen bulbs. I bought reflectors from Bob Drake (don't know what is available aftermarket for GM vehicles) that have some kind of coating that never needs to be resilvered, and they're already designed to take a common halogen bulb that you can get in any parts store. The reflectors have been on my truck over 20 years and are still as shiny as the day I took them out of the box. I'm running '36 car "bug eye" lenses instead of the flatter lens that was used on '35 car and '35-'39 truck. Very bright, no problems driving at night.

 

I read somewere that white painted reflectors were better than silver.........any truth to this?
I did this on an Indian motorcycle tail light and it worked good.

 

Great photoshop work, it fooled me. Bob

 

I had the reflectors in my 35 resilvered and bought QH bulbs that fit to OEM reflectors. Perfect focused beam and great to drive with at night. Good low and high beam. Try Cl***ic bulbs I use OEM '35 Chevy gl*** lenses as well.