Headlights

[First time restorer]

How do you mount a seal beam headlight into a 39 Ford headlight bucket? When my father had the car he put the extensions on but I wanted to go back to the flush with the fender look.

Thanks

 

[TerryOH]

The 39 Ford car did not use sealed beam headlights. Look in the web site for Bob Drake reproductions.

 

[TomTruck]

There were conversion kits back in the day to install sealed beams in a 39.

 

[hop up]

When going back to the original headlight setup you’ll be using a reflector. The reflector can be drilled out for a modern Halogen bulb. They have the socket and pigtail in the Help carousel at your local parts store. A common hole saw and use safety procedures as the reflector will want to spin. Install the pigtail and silicon it in place and install the original hardware and lens.

 

[ford38v8]

When going back to the original headlight setup you’ll be using a reflector. The reflector can be drilled out for a modern Halogen bulb. They have the socket and pigtail in the Help carousel at your local parts store. A common hole saw and use safety procedures as the reflector will want to spin. Install the pigtail and silicon it in place and install the original hardware and lens.

Halogen is NOT the way to go.

 

[Ken/Alabama]

Find some really good or NOS headlight reflectors and have them nickel plated them send them to Uvira reflective coatings and use stock 6 volt bulbs. Your headlights will be bright if your wiring and grounds are good. I done this on my 39 Zephyr, very pleased. The repop reflectors are mostly chrome plated, chrome is a very poor reflective material.

 

[hop up]

@ford38v8 I respect your opinion but have to ask why ? Is it poor lighting , wiring issues with a 6v or 12v with the draw of amps or ?
I used halogen as a example and do have them in my 32 but with modern wiring. Thanks

Halogen is NOT the way to go.

 

[Charlie Stephens]

If you mount the sealed beam behind a glass lens the lens will defocus the beam making it hard to see.

Charlie Stephens

 

[JSeery]

@ford38v8 I respect your opinion but have to ask why ? Is it poor lighting , wiring issues with a 6v or 12v with the draw of amps or ?
I used halogen as a example and do have them in my 32 but with modern wiring. Thanks

Would depend on the current draw (amp rating) and the focus of the bulbs.

 

[supereal]

Poor headlight performance is commonly caused by loss of power in the circuit. The old "bullet" connectors, the ancient dimmer switch, and even the headlight switch, can drain away the necessary power, as can a poor ground that depends on the fender attachment to the body. Even after checking all these points, the headlights in my '47 were inadequate after dark. I installed halogen bulbs with no improvement. The cure was a simple relay board controlled by the original circuit, but feeding the headlights from a direct to the battery. Now the lights are almost equal to modern vehicles. I used two 6 volt starter solenoids as relays. Simple but effective.

 

[JSeery]

This is my setup which is similar to the one supereal uses. I use continuous duty solenoids and it is for a 12v system. Believe supereal uses regular starter solenoids and uses it for a 6v system.

 

[KGS]

This is my setup which is similar to the one supereal uses. I use continuous duty solenoids and it is for a 12v system. Believe supereal uses regular starter solenoids and uses it for a 6v system.

JSeery,

Are you using this setup on a 12V system or are you using 12V solenoids on a 6V system?
KGS

 

[JSeery]

12v system, but works the same way if you use the correct 6v solenoids. I like the continuous duty solenoid (the engineer in me) but supereal uses the intermittent solenoids. Believe this is supereal's diagram.

 

[JSeery]

If anyone is interested you can do the same thing with the small square cube relays, and they come in both plastic and metal.

 

[blucar]

Find some really good or NOS headlight reflectors and have them nickel plated them send them to Uvira reflective coatings and use stock 6 volt bulbs. Your headlights will be bright if your wiring and grounds are good. I done this on my 39 Zephyr, very pleased. The repop reflectors are mostly chrome plated, chrome is a very poor reflective material.

The above quote is very good advise, however, I would take it one step further. The 36-39 bulbs are pre-focused bulbs that are designed to work with the original lens. Ron Francis makes a 36-39 style of bulb, 'Bright Bulbs' that works great.
I followed the advise of people that I thought knew what they were taking about, converted the head lights on my 39 conv to halogen, ruined a good set of reflectors with the halogen conversion, the lights were bright, however, the light was poorly aimed, defused all over the road.
The '37-39 head lights are hard to work with because of the non-mainstream type of lens they have. there are/were sealed beam conversions kits for the 36-39 lights, however they are hard to come by.. Keep an eye on Ebay, they come up from time to time.

 

[RKS.PA]

First Time, seems like we've been round the barn on your original question. You asked about converting your original bulb and reflector headlights to sealed beam bulbs. Not sure if you mentioned 6 or 12 volts, but am guessing you're still 6 volts.


I did this on my '39. Got kit from Bob Drake...part # 91A-13026...$now $225...ouch!


Kit gives you everything you need except sealed beam bulbs....these are standard sealed beam bulbs with glass adjusting "***" ground off ....or at least mine were.


Since everything was new and I made sure my grounds were perfect, night time visibility on both low and high beams was excellent....and I felt no safety compromises.

 

[blucar]

Taking this thread a little further I'll have to second "supereal'" comment about grounding and relays.
When I converted the headlights on my '36 coupe to sealed beams in '52 I used a trick that was very common at the time. I used '40 Chevy headlight pods that I fitted onto the fender/grille extension. (See Avatar pix) I used the headlight wiring system from the '40 Chevy donor, which had a relay incorporated in to the system... GM was further ahead in their wiring systems.
I removed the stock headlight switch from the bottom of the column in favor of a pull switch on the dash and a floor mounted dimmer switch.
The 6v lights on my '36 are very bright using conventional sealed beams. In 1961 I took the Chevy headlight pods off of "Henry" in favor of stock headlight pods with sealed beam conversion.
I kept the '40 Chevy headlights, and the '37 DeSoto bumpers that were on "Henry" for several years, maybe some day I might put them back on "Henry"...

 

[ford38v8]

@ford38v8 I respect your opinion but have to ask why ? Is it poor lighting , wiring issues with a 6v or 12v with the draw of amps or ?
I used halogen as a example and do have them in my 32 but with modern wiring. Thanks

Hop Up, Halogens were hyped some years ago as being brighter, which they were, but at the expense of high amperage draw, rendering tail lights useless, generators unable to keep up, wiring inadequate, beam focus non existent, and besides all that, one must modify the reflectors, making them useless to go back to original. Lighting technology today has obsoleted Halogens, and is actually still evolving to better all the time. Any upgrades today should be done with an eye to the future for even better upgrades.

 

[JSeery]

I did this on my '39. Got kit from Bob Drake...part # 91A-13026...$now $225...ouch!

Kit gives you everything you need except sealed beam bulbs....these are standard sealed beam bulbs with glass adjusting "***" ground off ....or at least mine were.

Did you post the wrong part number? 91A-13026 is for original steel buckets, not a conversion kit.

 

[JSeery]

There are these, but not sure how they would work. I would think the focus of the seal beam and the focus of the original lens would interfere with each other.