Hi all, advice needed please.

I have just taken the bulbs out of my old headlights so I could go get some new ones, and I'm rather confused by what I found. Not just in one but in both the main beam holes are H3 24v 70W bulbs???
Everywhere seems to suggest 12v 55W bulbs though. I'm sure the latter is correct as cars run 12v, not 24v, however does anyone know why this may of been done in the past?
Also can I go higher with the new bulbs for better lighting or would it burn the circuit out and blow fuses?

cheeRS

 

You are correct 12V 55W (H4 IIRC) is the correct type, the current ones probably don't work that well as they don't have the power they require! Perhaps the previous owner pinched them from his lorry

You may be able to up the wattage of the current bulbs, however I would not like to say what the wiring could cope with (Bearing in mind the age of it now as well) you may find cleaning the earths for the lights would be a big surprise as they may be either rusty mounting or corroded. I think some also uprate to HID, personally I don't find nothing wrong with the standard setup.

Martin

 

I put some higher wattage bulbs in an old astra once and they melted the indicator stalk. As above, get some uprated standard wattage bulbs, I recomend philips blue vision. They aren't blue as the name suggests, but a bright white, crisp light.

 

The main lights bulb is a H4 of 60/55 watts, that is 60 main beam 55 watt dip, both contained in the one H4 bulb.
The inner "spots" are H3, as standard they are 55 watts.
Don't at all up the wattage of the bulbs unless you run seperate relays for dip and main beam, the wiring simply won't cope, even when new let alone with age.
Fit some H4 60/55 watt OSRAM NIGHTBREAKER, about Ł10 a pair on ebay, and fit some H3 nightbreaker on the inners.
This will be a world of difference lighting wise, cleaning up the earth is a good idea, but better is to run a seperate earth direct from the battery to each light, this again will give a big difference.
I have 2 relays in each headlight, 1 for dip and the other for main beam, I've used 2 in each so that if 1 fuse blows I only lose 1 side not both, like I would if I fed 1 relay to both sides and the feed/activating side fuse blew, this is much safer imo.
There is plenty of space to hide the relays in the headlight shells, so all you see from the outside is a new mini loom going into each light, containing a new earth and a new live(to the relay/s).
I've used uprated bulbs for over 20 years, up to 160/130 H4, but the last set of decent 130/90 H4 were not as bright as the latest nightbreaker bulbs.
A very close second to the nightbreaker is PHILIPS EXTREME H4, they don't do a H3 extreme sadly.
I put HID on my gf's astra mk3, but after a few months took it off, as the extreme and nightbreakers gave a much better beam, though I'm sure the cossie lights would be better suited to HID than mk3 astra lights.
tabetha

 

Many thanks for the replies. I didn't think there would be any reason to fit those strange bulbs but worth asking. Thanks for the recommendation Tabetha, I'll look into those bulbs, and the relay idea.
cheeRS

 

Interesting topic
As my bulbs are like candles compared 2 my vito van.
Orderd some of the nightbrakers.

 

i have got 130/90w H4 in the headlamps 100w H3 in the aux and 100w H3 in the fogs all on the standed wiring apart frm the fogs where i fitted a larger fuse if i remember correctly
also fitted a pair of cibie super oscars with 100w H1 bulbs fitted the are wired in to the main beam and they are on seperate wiring looms with a fuse and relay for each lamp.
all of that equals 870w inc the side lamp bulbs(as tesco said every little helps!)
i have had this set up on all three sirrras i have owned and never had trouble with melting switches, relays, fuses etc.all my cars have been used all year round so the lamps get used quite a lot during the winter on fast twisting B roads so its not like they aren't getting used
i am not saying you won't have trouble if you fit bigger bulbs, seperate realys and wiring is a good idea i did that with my first sierra but never got round to doing on my later cars, and the lamps work ok so i left them on standed wiring and not had any problems , so as the old saying goes if it ain't broke don't fix it

cheers nick

 

Then you can count yourself very lucky, there is a very fundemental reason why larger consumers of power have thicker wire, there is not really any reserve with the std wiring, when new let alone 20 + years old wire with high resistance built in.
Flowing more amps produces more heat, I'd be amazed if you didn't get a good improvement with relays, having done this to more than 1 sierra even with the std bulbs the lights were brighter.
If you relayed your lights you could also use the permanent dip option also, where this stays on even on main beam, that makes a big difference also.
tabetha