Low beam headlight question

I have a question about the passenger side low beam headlight on my Buick. Took the Buick out for a spin late this afternoon and when putting on the front headlights on the way home, I noticed the passenger side low beam was out. When I got home I put on the high beams out of curiousity and all four headlights lit up. Does the low beam have a dual action where it would act like this? By the way, the bulb is an old T-3. I'm thinking about upgrading all the bulbs to a more modern one which would be brighter on the roads - any ideas for those as well or will any modern ones do?

 

Same thing happened to me couple of weeks ago when I was putting the car back together. It was a prong on my T-3 light, it was barely attached to the headlight.

 

AND, I'll weigh in with the same experience - but in my case the low beam was burned out and the high beam (of that headlight) was just fine.

This makes sense from the standpoint that most of us do the majority of our driving with the low beams; so it's logical for them to burn out before the high beam does.

With that said, MY solution was:



I got matching Wagner Halogen bulb assemblies for less than $4.00 each!

Rockauto is an old Buick guy's best friend!

 

Thank you everyone! Looks like it is time for new headlights.

 

I had one prong detach from the high beam headlight, a year ago. I soldered it back on. this past august, I replaced all my headlights with halogen units purchased from rockauto. I garbaged the broken unit and kept the others.

 

I'd also recommend replacing both low beam lamps at the same time. The output will be different between the old one and the new one, possibly enough to have the law pull you over for it. I've seen it happen.

 

>>I'm going to replace all the headlights at the same time. Will also spend some time cleaning the headlight rings as they look dirty upon close inspection!

 

In Europe cars are not allowed to use sealed beam headlight units for the low beams, this because they can explode during an accident when they are switched on.

Maybe it's a good idea to buy headlights with regular bulbs, so the next time when one of the low beams is out, you only have to replace the bulb :TU:

Read this interesting article :Comp:

 

If your car is going to be judged you will probably lose points if you change out the T-3's for modern bulbs. Repro T-3's are available. Otherwise no reason not to upgrade.
John

 

Modern T-3's are brighter than the originals. The T-3's offered are not correct for 72(71 was last year) anyway so may as well go modern.

 

>>Just ordered my Wagner Halogen low and high beams from Rockauto:TU:

By the way, if anyone is looking to buy from Rockauto - here is a discount code: 1831123315777667. Put that number in the "How did you hear about us" line of the shopping cart. I used it and got the discount.

 

Say what? are u saying that a car that came from the factory with sealed beams has to be converted to bulbs?

 

Nothing different from the way European cars had to be modified for the US market in the 70's and 80's with ugly bigger bumpers and stupid side marker lights.
Look at this model year 1979 Mercedes-Benz 450SL.

Original:



Ugly North American ''safety conversion'' of what was once a beautiful car:



Different folks, different strokes :laugh:


Just like James wrote in his reply on a post about the Citron SM:

Click here :Comp:

 

I don't think any European cars came with sealed beams- they went from the tungsten bulb era to the quartz iodine/halogen era, & bypassed sealed beams altogether. Sealed beams were a great idea in 1940, but were well past their useby date in 1970.

 

Gerry meant an American that was exported to Europe.

 

All I remember when I was stationed in west Germany in 88-89 was how poorly the European headlights were on anything but brand new cars. I was under the impression they used sealed beams all the way up until the mid-late 80s... Lots of German drivers would flash high beams at you oncoming thinking your hight beams were on. A flash of real high beams would settle them back down though.

 

The sealed part was not the real issue IMO. To previous poster's point about poor lighting he witnessed on older Euro cars -- the problem with the unsealed Euro headlight was that the reflectors got corroded more easily -- diminishing output. The sealed beams did not have that issue.
Byas