The dim headlights that Troverman speaks of are the "city lights". They're for driving around in the city under the street lights when you don't need additional illumination from your car. It's a courtesy thing to oncoming drivers. Illegal in the US to use only those after dark. Or city lights with driving or fog lights. Driving lights should be switched off for oncoming drivers the same way you would with high beams.

The headlight leveling switch uses vacuum, not electricity, to level the headlights with a load in the trunk. There's a diaphragm inside the headlight housing.

__________________
Norm in NJ
Next oil change at 230,000miles

Altbenz, re: your quest for city lights... I've been running a 5 watt halogen (64111) that is brighter than the stock T4W.

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Steve

1992 300CE Sportline Sophie
1990 300E Emma - in the family
1979 240D Josephine - sold, but not forgotten
2004 Pacifica AWD

http://web.mac.com/dakota/Mercedes/Home.html

hey dakota, thanks for that info.

Unfortunately what I need first is the actual city lamp socket itself. In case you didn’t know, or just for the sake of knowing, for model years 94/95 the internals between DOT and ECE headlights are the same. By that I mean the same reflectors and whatnot. Which is why by merely swapping lenses to E-code, I will have created an ECE headlight. But by doing this, I don’t get the city lamp socket…..which would have been there had I just bought ECE headlights.

Somebody somewhere MUST have a solution for this problem. Where to obtain a city lamp socket? It doesn’t even have to be from A W124, so long as it fits; maybe from a W140 or C class? Or maybe even from a whole other make…volvo perhaps? I don’t know.

Ahh, I see your problem now. Does your HL assy housing have a hole or plug in the location where the city lamp socket would go?

Or maybe you would have to get the Bosch reflector that has the hole for the socket. If you need the Bosch reflector part number, I can supply it... I'm sure you could get them from Bekkers.

If you look at this page <lights> and scroll down near the bottom to City Lights, you will see what the reflector w/ city lights looks like. The little square-ish extension from the bottom of the white ring is where the city light socket plugs in. You can see what the small gray socket looks like. there is no part number visible on the socket.

Let me know if you need help with part numbers or better pictures, etc. Maybe Bekkers can get you just the socket, if you have the place to plug it. They seem to have parts for the assys.

__________________
Steve

1992 300CE Sportline Sophie
1990 300E Emma - in the family
1979 240D Josephine - sold, but not forgotten
2004 Pacifica AWD

http://web.mac.com/dakota/Mercedes/Home.html

There is a small oval opening directly beneath the H4 opening.

OK, that's probably the same as mine. It's oval because the bulb goes straight fore-and-aft which would intersect the curved reflector in an oval. If you can't get the socket from Bekker, I'd go down to the local McParts or NAPA store with the correct bulb and find any kind of socket that fits the lamp, bring it home and modify it so that you can mount it in that hole.

Note that on my Bosch assys, the socket actually is held by/mounted to that white plastic piece. Also remember that the 5 watt bulb (64111 or Jahn 4088) are halogen and should not be handled by your bare fingers.

__________________
Steve

1992 300CE Sportline Sophie
1990 300E Emma - in the family
1979 240D Josephine - sold, but not forgotten
2004 Pacifica AWD

http://web.mac.com/dakota/Mercedes/Home.html

just as a little update.

1) No progress on the city light.

2) While the 100watt H3's were nice, they generate a LOT of heat. I guess the fog area inside the headlight is smaller, and the bulb is closer to the lens so the whole thing generates a ton of heat; so much so that the bulbs literally cooked themselves. No damage to the headlight housing or lens, but the H3 bulbs died. It’s just as well actually, I am not sure how well the super hot lenses would fare in a situation where cold water (like from rain/sleet/snow) would hit them. It would prolly be okay being as the lens is borosilicate glass...but still. Anyways I am running old school 55watt H3s for now. I might go to 80 watts, but certainly not 100's again.

You will have to drill a hole into the main reflector, about an inch below the main bulb hole, so that you can fit the city light bulb holder.

I already have an OEM hole...its actually more of an oval. What I dont have is the city lamp bulb holder.

I see. I wonder if there is a part number for it. I would have to look at my OEM euros.
I wonder if this would work. It doesn't use the hole unfortunately.


http://www.eautoworks.com/html/ORD-1-1-1-28082.cfm

Dont use these! they push the H4 bulb rearward causing the low and high beam to be unfocused. Plus the blue tint will reduce headlamp performance.

If you guys are using overwatt bulbs, are you using heavy duty connectors? I really like Hellas heavy duty connector for high wattage H4s. Dan Stern sells them at danielsternlighting.com.

I would try Dan ^^^ for the T4W sockets too. that should be a service item for ECE lamps. It might share with another mercedes car in the US, but the only others that I can think of are H6Ws in the W210s and the W5Ws in some of the newer stuff which do not use the bayonet style base of the T4W.

Remember, the Department of Transporation does not make headlamp laws, the lamps just happen to have "DOT" markings on them cuz the headlamp laws say so. FMVSS is really responsible for the laws, and SAE makes suggestions that FMVSS usually uses.

BTW, the H4 is 60/55watt in stock form, not 65/55 like on the first link with the pictures.

Anyone added LEGAL DRLs...well TFLs to be exact as they would be legal in germany... http://www.tagfahrlicht.de/daytime-running-lights Fog lights are not legal DRLs in the US, only Canada. The low beam or high beam (reduced intensity) must be greater than 4" from the turn signal or the turnsignal must be 2.5x brighter than the normal turnsignal values. Or the DRL turns off when the turnsignal is on (a la GMC Sonoma). The low beam can be used at full power (including Xenon) if there is a dash indicator saying that the DRLs are on, or if there is an auto headlamp on function with a light sensor.

Anyone try the Morette headlamps?

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2002 VW Golf TDI-169,000 miles B20

yep, anything blue is junk

I tried to find ceramic h4 connectors, but couldn’t find them. So I just directly connected all the cables to the bulb. Don’t worry, I am using 10ga wire and nothing is shorting out.


I never asked him. I’ll try that out and see what’s up.

that’s just a typo. I'll fix it when I get a chance


If you're referring to when I said "I use my fogs as DRLs", then maybe I should have said "I use my fogs like 'DRLs'." I guess first off, it should be obvious that there was never an attempt at having legal lighting. Anybody on this forum running e-code headlights is breaking the law. IMO US lighting rules are junk....well at least they were. Thinks have harmonized recently so lighting is much better. But all the cars we are talking about have lights that revolve around those past rules, and like I said, those rules SUCK.


They won’t fit on the 94 and 95 model years. And while I now they use cibie lamps, I'm still unsure about the way it makes the car look....kinda ages the car a lot. As if it was a 70's model.



Have to been to a forum called HIDPLANET I go by the name LEDZ there.

danielstern said they dont carry it as a service item.

ARG!

damn, i guess a used item would be your best chance then. Find a broken headlamp and buy it for the internal harness.

What I like about the Morette kit is its serviceability. Yes, it does give a W123 look to the front end, but it should make adding Hella 90mm BiXenons in the outer cavity and Cibie CSR halogen highs in the inner very straight forward. Or I could mount a set of Bosch high beams with an integrated position (city) lamps and with the projectors in the outer cavities and give a real W211 look at night.

Or...install W123 yellow fogs in the inner cavities in the winter with a different wiring set up for foul weather and switch back to the 'quad' high beam in the summer months. Very flexible indeed!



CSR Install on a BMW 6 series

Also I could easily use sealed-beam plastic or even metal mesh headlamp protectors to prevent the glass from breaking.

The Morette does not have a leveling system like the stock ECE lamps, but adding Hella's autoleveling system with the 90mm BiXenon aftermarket lamp would be very cool.

Plus, with that ABS bezel surrounding the headlamps, I could add fixed or retractable headlamp washers. I think the new BMW X3's would work fine.

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2002 VW Golf TDI-169,000 miles B20