sealed beam headlights

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
The rectangular 2-headlight bulbs are denoted as

6054

I looked for weeks and found a single replacement 6054 made in Italy for almost 180-dollars each. I would defintely check voltage at the headlights.

The old louvered Per Lux stainless steel lighta were hard to beat for legal low-bean use. Halogen low beam bulbs consume 45-watts.

A 30-watt LED needs a LARGE finned heatsink. A finned disc an inch thick and about the diameter of a tennis ball. A flat chip would be twice the area of a postage stamp. A COB would be needed but where are they going to stick the heatsink? I smell a rat. This does not add up.

FROM THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

Mex.. I don't know where you have been looking BUT..

You NEED to add a "H" to the number you are looking for.. "H" is for Halogen which replaced the standard bulb.. I don't think they make non halogen sealed beams any more..

So it is H6054 you are looking for and can be had for a mere $8.88..

HERE

6054 is but one size of rectangular sealed beam light, and most are 60/55 watt high/low beam.

I plan on getting the Cibie 200MM which are a direct replacement for the 6054 size factor.

Into the Cibies, any H4 bulb will fit, but h4 bulb quality is all over the map. Daniel stern recommended me a 70/65 watt Osram bulb for the Cibies.

The Cibie's are 80$ each though before tax. Much more affordable than the JW speaker 8900 series though which are apparently the best, at this time, drop in replacement for a 6054.

My bulbs were suffering almost 3 volts of drop on the wiring. Now with a 12awg relayed harness the voltage drop is only 0.3v. Light output is not linear with voltage but exponential. So reducing voltage drop to the bulbs makes huge huge differences in light output on Halogen bulbs, but at the cost of reduced bulb lifespan.

The actual wattages on H4 bulbs are not really representative of their output. As voltage increases, so does their amp draw, and some bulbs are rated at 12v and others at 13.2, so direct comparison is not wise. Check out this h4 bulb comparison:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?392498-Interesting-headlight-bulb-test-results

The rectangular 2-headlight bulbs are denoted as

6054

I looked for weeks and found a single replacement 6054 made in Italy for almost 180-dollars each. I would defintely check voltage at the headlights.

The old louvered Per Lux stainless steel lighta were hard to beat for legal low-bean use. Halogen low beam bulbs consume 45-watts.

A 30-watt LED needs a LARGE finned heatsink. A finned disc an inch thick and about the diameter of a tennis ball. A flat chip would be twice the area of a postage stamp. A COB would be needed but where are they going to stick the heatsink? I smell a rat. This does not add up.

FROM THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS

busyguy wrote:
My Harney coach has the sealed beam headlights. The high beam is great but, the low beam is almost worthless.
I am thinking about changing them to LED's and was wondering if anyone else has already did this. If so how did it work and was there much improvement.
Bulbs are $139.00 a pair on Amazon. Not cheap but may be worth it.
Thanks for your response
Busyguy

Don't bother, those LEDs are for NON SEALED BEAM headlight assemblies AND they are not DOT approved...

There may not be anything wrong with your sealed beams.. What the problem tends to be is to much voltage loss from undersized wire..

Buy or make a headlight relay kit.. Check the voltage at the bulbs, most likely the bulbs are getting 10-11V and should be getting 13.2V or so..

Check the link below for headlight relay kits..

HERE

The link below is an "Instructables" on how to DIY your own relay kit..

HERE

I would try adjusting the low beams first before spending $139 on headlights. If you don't think it is much better check what voltage is in your light socket it it may be a lot less that 12.2 volts. In which case relays can be added that would brighten the bulb. I almost went this route before adjusting my low beams which which put more light where I needed it.

What part number/ Size factor?

The best incandescent sealed beams are GE NightHawks. Their beam pattern blows away anything made by sylvania or wagner.

I have GE 6054NH in my vehicle that get voltages upto 14.6v, and few vehicles that pull next to me have more light on the road where it does the most good.

These are "Sealed Beam" rectangular head lights
Two for high beam, two for low beam
Not replaceable bulb

If just the bulb itself is replaceable, then it is not a sealed beam headlight.

Do not try and use a LED bulb inside a housing/reflector/lens designed for a filament bulb. On such a light the entire design is around the filament light source, and no HID, No LED can replicate it. So instead of a wide flat beam that is not glaring to oncoming traffic, there is a poor floodlight, that does glare and offend, and the worst part is that they create excessive amounts of 'feel good' foreground lighting, and makes the human believe they can see better, when the excessive foreground light causes the pupils to constrict, letting in less light, and the result is poorer vision, with the Human falsely thinking they can see better.

You can see this all the time with those nimrods who retrofit HID's into incandescent reflectors/housings. These are just glaring floodlights and do a horrid job at allowing the driver to see better, all they do is blind oncoming drivers making everybody less safe.

If they are indeed a sealed beam, then there are some options like Cibie's into which one can put a high quality h4 bulb, and even increase the wattages if the wiring to the bulb is adequate or upgraded too.

JWspeaker has very expensive but very Good LED sealed beam replacements in many sizes/form factors:

http://www.jwspeaker.com/products/

Trucklite has less expensive LED replacements with less performance (than JWspeaker), and these are rebranded by both GE and Phillips and sold on Amazon and elsewhere.

Getting higher voltages to the incandescent bulbs really increases their output dramatically, but shortens lifespan. A new relayed harness with fatter wire is quite easy to do and yields impressive results.

Phillips has an 'extreme power' line of replacement bulbs that have a smaller brighter much more precisely positioned filament that also greatly improves forward lighting, legally.

Try E-mailing Daniel Stern to see what recommendations he has for your intended lighting upgrades:

Also lots of good reading on this site:
http://danielsternlighting.com/home.html

Most aftermarket LED headlights are worthless; many are dimmer than the halogens they attempt to replace, and I'm not sure any are DOT approved. There are also concerns with proper engineering (to keep the LEDs properly cooled, etc.) on many of them.

I also suspect you don't have sealed beam headlights, for what it's worth.

I have looked at those , I have been considering the same thing
But I also need to replace the fixture, the adjusters are worn out
I have A Safari, I have the same headlight system ..
As SMC the MFG built both Harney and Safari