Headlight upgrade 940
 

What are the options for headlight upgrades on a 940. Can I refurbish the existing ones as they look a bit dull or are there any options for upgraded ones?

Mine were pretty dull when I first got the car. I just bought new Phillips bulbs which made a big difference

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1 - check the reflectors. They are able to be cleaned but WITH CARE!!!! If they are tarnished its a bit of a lost cause doing much else - the entire headlamp will need to be replaced.

2 - clean the lenses. Its a good thing the headlights can be fully dismantled, but take care while doing it and when reassembling make sure the seals etc are intact or its all for nothing.

3 - fit a real headlight relay. The one in the 940 is not a real useful bit of kit imho. A dual relay (one circuit low beam, the other high beam) mounted near the battery with a main B+ feed taken from the back of the alternator will reduce voltage drop to the headlights by about 0.7 to 1 volt. That doesn't sound a lot, but every volt lost results in about a 15% loss of light efficiency.

4 - Once the headlight relay is in place, your switchgear is safe and you can whack in some high-wattage H4 bulbs. Not sure what the regs are over your way, but I can fit 130/100W H4 bulbs and still be legal. Possums and hedgehogs have no chance.

5 -Correctly align the headlights. There is no excuse for poorly aligned lights that either dazzle oncoming traffic on low beam or light up worm casts in the verge. Its not hard to do yourself, or get your local people to sort it.

6 - Brighter bulbs and correct alignment however do not extend the range of the light. That is a design outcome of the lens. If you need more distance, get some quality spotlights. Again, relay, switch them with high beam, and fit a separate isolation switch so you can turn them off and still have high beam available.

7 - Clean the windscreen.

Simplest and best headlamp upgrade i've done is this :

https://www.powerfuluk.com/h4-led-40...pair-7279.html

https://www.powerfuluk.com/media/cat...-wiredx2_5.jpg

Because they are designed for existing H4 housings and the LEDs mimic the shape of the filaments, there is no legal problem with them. They give a crisp beam pattern and much better light output, even on tarnished reflectors :

https://i.postimg.cc/ZRF3MdFg/IMG-20...723704-HDR.jpg

The other advantage is they are more restful to drive with at night as they are closer to daylight in their light colour and they also pick up on animals eyes in the verge - a bit freaky at first until you realise what it is!
Also because they don't get hot like halogen bulbs, the lamps stay cleaner and the tarnishing of the headlamp reflector is vastly reduced.

Don't be tempted to buy cheaper versions on ebay, they will almost certainly be a waste of money. :speechless-smiley-5

There are one or two on ebay that work correctly but are almost the same price and generally have to come from China so you'll be waiting a long time for something that might not work when it gets here!

Don't forget they'll have come halfway round the world in their own individual packaging with all the potential drops that has had.
The rest of the ebay ones don't have a good beam pattern because they use enormous (by comparison) LEDs which don't give the light purely in the area it needs to be so the reflectors and lenses work properly to aim the beam where it should be.

A few years back i was talking to a member of our local constabulary and it turned out they use Nightbreakers - a new set every 2 months! The reason is simple, because halogen bulbs give out heat as well as light, they burn out in that time.

Shortly after i got my first pair of these H4 LED bulbs, i got together with a couple of other people with the same sort of car, checked headlamp aim then had a "light-out".
One of the other cars had "China-bay" Xenon-look cheapy halogens, the other had Nightbreakers and mine had these.

There was one clear winner - these LED bulbs. For output, definition/beam pattern and general illumination, these were far better than the cheap ebay jobbies which in turn, were in fact better than the Nightbreakers. In fairness, the cheap ones were almost new and the Nightbreakers had been in the car a few months but if you consider the cost of Nightbreakers and then replace them every 12 months (unlike the Police who renew them every 2 months but their lights are almost always on), these are much cheaper in the long run as they don't degenerate with time, just as good now as when i first fitted them.

Money well spent, even at the higher price i originally paid! First thing i did when i got this 760 was fit a pair of these, they were cheaper by then than the original pair i got (which are still in my Rover and still fine) and a similar price to what they are now. Well worth doing and if you need to justify the extra expense of getting a pair of these, buy them! Seriously, you'll find they justify themselves! :thumbs_up:

Well I've had my Nightbreakers in for nearly 3 years now. Much brighter, look better and not had one fail yet.
I'll buy again no problem.

Shame i can't find the photo of the "light-out" (lost it thanks to the Photobucket debacle) as it would show exactly what i'm saying about the LED bulbs.

Also if you were to replace your Nightbreakers now with new ones, you'd see a difference. ;) :D

Haven't thought about it ... yet Dave, or read through the sellers data but, they seem attractive.

Would these LED's be compatible with dimmed dip daylight running headlights (or whatever their official name is!) that are fitted to my 1990 745? I also guess that you would have to chop off those plugs? P.S. Those bloody big photos again!! Bob :)

They work fine with dim-dip Bob.

They're "plug'n'play", no plugs need amputating! :tounge_smile:

*** EDIT ***As for the pics, i use a proper computer with a widescreen monitor in landscape mode. The pics appear larger because whoever it is that designs the software for the various message-boards that are used for forums is doing it on a device in portrait mode.
Our eyes are side-by-side so widescreen in landscape mode is the only logical option, unless taking a full length photograph o someone stood up with minimal background.
If our eyes were "under-and-over" then my monitor would be stood on its end!

Also i use a third-party photo-hosting site for my images so forum space isn't compromised by any photos. The thumbnails the forum has space for are often reduced in detail so enlarging them presents a blurred image. Likewise if i was to use the "Thumbnail for forums" link to post thumbnail images, it reduces the image content/quality.

Thanks very much Dave. I may well send off for some of those tomorrow for whilst my equivalent to Nightbeakers provide a degree of an upgrade I need more light at night as my eyesight gets dimmer!! You fixed those headlight wipers yet!! :eek::eek: Cheers, Bob

The headlamp wipers have always worked Bob, they just sit at a strange angle when parked on the N/S light. Just fitted the second new set of blades to them as it happens.

When i upgraded the driving and fog beams to HID lamps (due to the then lack of availability of H3 LEDs), i looked at the N/S park position briefly but found someone had damaged part of the main headlamp to body mounts on both light units. As such i decided to leave them be and used a seriously large/strong cable tie on each lamp on the effected mounting points to eliminate vibration. They are still secured on all other mounting points so was a belt'n'braces thing really.