Improving the lighting on a highboy can generally be accomplished by just bolting on any number of the upgraded set of headlights available these days. Unfortunately, the same can't always be done if you're working on something a little different like a mid-Thirties full-fendered rod with headlight buckets incorporated into the car's design.
Headwinds' owner, Joel Felty, has always been looking for something cool to do that'll also fill a void in the market. His main business is manufacturing custom billet headlights for hot rods and motorcycles, but when someone came in with a stock set of Model T headlights that had been retro-fitted with new H4 bulbs in the stock reflector and wasn't happy with the performance, Joel figured he could come up with a solution. Joel and his crew came up with an adapter ring that allowed a modern 7-inch light to be installed in the original bucket giving the customer the bright and directed light he wanted.
Over the years Joel has expanded the company's adapters to work with a variety of models, for many of which there haven't been any other solutions. We were intrigued, so we went by and took a look as they brightened up a set of '37 Plymouth sedan headlights using the stock preloaded lens springs to blend the old and new.
Principles Of Light
Photometrics combined with candlepower determine the lamp's performance (luminosity). Photometrics is how light is distributed and candlepower is the amount of light emitted from the bulb. Photometrics is determined by flutes behind the lens or mirrors on the reflector. Distributed light patterns can go from a pencil beam to a wide flood. A smooth parabolic reflector with a clear lens produces a pencil beam. A fluted lens produces a flood light due to prisms on the inside of the lamp that bend or refract the light. Refracted light is yellowed, reducing the light's brightness.
Modern-technology lamps have clear lenses with mirrored reflectors. This produces a dense light pattern with whiter light that reaches farther down the road than a fluted lens lamp. H4 bulbs come in Halogen (Iodine) or Xenon (an inert gas). Xenon is about 30 percent brighter than iodine. Some bulbs have dichroic mirrors (colors) to change the wavelength of light, making the road more visible. Others have blue filters to make them look like H.I.D. (mentioned below). Filters, like sunglasses, reduce the amount of light emitted from the bulb, making it dimmer. Blue lights on some cars are H.I.D. (High Intensity Discharge), which is an arc lamp, deriving its light from an arc jumping from one electrode to the other, inside a quartz glass tube filled with xenon gas and metallic salts. Most bulbs are incandescent lights and have a thin, wound filament that heats up and glows inside a bulb or sealed beam, filled with various gasses. H.I.D. is 3 to 4 times brighter than iodine and draws less power (wattage) than incandescent lamps.
Here's what we were starting...
Here's what we were starting with, a stock '37 Plymouth housing with the stock lamp.
We started the upgrade by...
We started the upgrade by removing the headlamp. In this case we had to depress the lens to remove the trim/retaining ring. Once the ring was removed, we were able to lift the lens out of the bucket.
We then had to remove the...
We then had to remove the reflector by disengaging the retaining clips by carefully prying on the reflector until the tension springs were revealed. These springs are what hold the lens against the trim/retaining ring and allowed us to depress the lens earlier.
The three retaining clips...
The three retaining clips (arrow) were then removed from the stock reflector.
The stock retaining clips...
The stock retaining clips were installed into the Headwinds mounting ring.
The new Headwinds mounting...
The new Headwinds mounting ring was placed in the old bucket by rotating it until the tension spring clips aligned with the tension springs on the bucket.
A screwdriver was used to...
A screwdriver was used to pull the retention spring clips through the retention spring to hold the new mounting ring in place.
The new wiring and pigtail...
The new wiring and pigtail were installed in the bucket and then the new lamp was plugged in.
The lamp was placed into the...
The lamp was placed into the mounting ring and then the new Headwinds beauty ring was installed.
The lamp and beauty ring assembly...
The lamp and beauty ring assembly was then depressed so that the stock trim/retaining ring could be installed starting at the bottom of the housing.
The finished installation...
The finished installation follows the natural, original curve of the vintage headlight, keeping that classic look and feel.
If you want a little more...
If you want a little more modern look, you can now use any 7-inch S.A.E. lamp in your stock housing, enabling you to choose from lamps with built-in turn signal, tri-bars, snake eyes, and more.