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Old 02-21-2004, 05:31 PM
Fimum Fit
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Forget the 9004 bulbs!

They are the ones which make us all complain constantly about post-sealed beam USA code headlights! Look for a way to adapt to H-4 instead. In fact, now that I think of it, I have in that weird headlight collection of mine a set of Cibie Type-A using 5 3/4 round lights from a Peuteot delivered to a colleague while he was a visiting professor in France long ago and converted to sealed beams upon US entry, and the Type-A hole on those was just the perfect size (and focal length -- the most important factor) so I could crimp and epoxy in an H-4 bulb so that my son could use them for an upgrade on his old '78 BMW 320i.

Be warned, though, that reflectors and lenses designed for Type A bulbs usual have a lot less beam dispersion designed in, because the light output was so much less, and therefore you will have a lot brighter up-angle on the right (assuming that your light units come from a car with USA/German road habits rather than British), which may iritate people who get the beam in their left side mirror as you pass them, and they also spread less light way over to both sides, a factor to consider in deer country.

I also have in my light collection a sample of a unit made in Brazil which JCWhitney once marketed ("For off road only") which had basically H-4 Euro code specs, but the bulb was like an H-4 but with an entirely different sort of base, not H-4 or Type A -- I don't know if it was for some South American code or what.

Addendum: upon rechecking, I think that the base of the Brazilian bulbs is the type European lights had before the Type A was adopted in about 1956, when they still had a flat cutoff.

Last edited by Fimum Fit; 02-21-2004 at 09:01 PM.
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