lockie, you should be able to do a straight change over to Halogen lights and bulbs.
I take it you have standard sealed beams.
I had HELLA H4 's with 55/60w halogen bulbs in my old Nissan Patrol, when i sold it i pulled them out and swapped them for the Lucas sealed beams that my mini had in it at the time. I am yet to put relays on my headlights in my mini, but then again i don't really do any night driving.
As for the picture of the light that you have put up it should be a straight changeover, you shouldn't have to touch your parker's, i'd just find some sort of plug to fill the hole in the new light .

i was thinking that 60/55s wouldn't be much brighter than the lights already in there?

What do new cars these days come out with? Do you know? As you say I can always up the globes, but would prefer to try and get a decent globe to begin with, as every spare dollar being a student is critical.

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Bluey-1973 Clubby - 1330, high lift, big cam, 7 port madness in progress..

Gumby-1978 Minivan, British Racing Green - 1310, high lift, mild cam, enlarged porting and chamber shape with big valve head, supercharged build in ever slow progress!

Mostly plastic units, check one out, it's pretty obvious when you cop a feel of one.

I learned about the heat crazing dangers of high wattage bulbs from the wrx guys I used to know.

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

Hey Lockie,

Could have told you this other than the forum, but in case others were wondering. You can run the angel eye (outer illuminated ring) when driving/parker and that would be legal, as long as the globe is not coloured/flashing.

Cheers, Sam

Most modern cars run 55/60 or similar.
Using relays will give you a good earth and ample voltage.
Your standard 30 to 50 year old wiring gives a dreadful dull yellow light
due to voltage drop within the loom and poor earth.
Your new lights should throw good light with standard bulbs once the relays are set up.

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82 BJ42 just completed resto
64 850 Modified(about to start rebuild)

So hold on, whenever anyone upgrades from ye olde to halogens they are told to replace all (lighting related) wiring and fit relays. Makes sense. When they have done so, they are impressed with the difference.

So is the noticeable difference coming from the wiring and relays or lights?!

The reason I ask is I rewired my car from scratch, which included relays as a matter of course, but am still using old sealed beams just cause I've collected a bunch over the years. I've driven modern cars with worse lights than my mini.....

For low wattages, and a good switch then the difference may be next to small. Jack up the wattage and the voltage drop increases, the heat in the standard loom wires, and the damage the switch over time.

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

Ya but we're usually talking about from 60/50 to 60/55? Or am I understating it....

It's not so much the power that's the problem as the current. If you look at the overhead power lines, they're not particularly large wires, but they deliver a huge amount of power. Thats because they're high voltage, but quite a low current.

However, 2 60W globes running at 12V will give (2x60)/12 = 10 amps. That's the same as the maximum current you can draw from a standard power point (any more and you'll trigger the circuit breakers). A continuous 10amps is a lot to run through a switch.

If Lockie saves his dough and upgrades to relays on his current Lucas sealed beams with new power and earth cables (but the same switch wires) he will see a noticable difference in brightness.

The lucas lights are not that bad with a relay and beefier power cables. Once he has done this he can lash out and buy the new bulbs when finances allow and simply switch over to the crystal eyes without a big change in wiring as it will already be done.

I was going to go the H4 route but I stuck relays in, found the lucas lights improved greatly and decided to stick with them until I get tired of them or the beams blow. I'm guessing I'll get ttired of them before the globes give up the ghost.

So Lockie I would get relays and new power and earth cables first, check the result and go from there. You'll be surprised how much brighter the Lucas units are after simply adding the relay setup.

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Cheers
Alec
1275LS - July 78 - XNFAD18Y/102918

This is kinda missing my point sorry. I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with the standard wiring/switch. I was just saying that people who upgrade wires + relay + lights might see nearly the same improvement from wires + relays and save themselves a couple dollars.

Or you did get my point, and I missed yours

1275LS is summing up what I was blathering about.

Halogens do put out a better quality and quantity of light than sealed beam units because they burn hotter and brighter. The inclusion of halogen allows the tungsten element to burn to a higher temperature.
It varies, but halogens are about 30% more efficient in lumens output per watt .

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

Agreed, but still put me down as one who was surprised as to how much better Lucas 50W/75W sealed beams get with relay feed!

Especially the high beam is awesome once relays are fitted

cheers,

Jacob

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'72 Clubman Van - 1022cc, 295 head, 731 cam - Daily Driver
'69 Morris 1100 S - Dinged by a bus, in shed under repair
'64 Morris 1100 - Early 1100, long term project

i would have to agree here. But I got these lights ages ago, and on the cheap for something like less than half the price they normally go for, and I like the look of the crystal eye better.

I won't be putting them in straight away yet, until I sort a few more things out, (like my other thread of course )

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Bluey-1973 Clubby - 1330, high lift, big cam, 7 port madness in progress..

Gumby-1978 Minivan, British Racing Green - 1310, high lift, mild cam, enlarged porting and chamber shape with big valve head, supercharged build in ever slow progress!

WIRING HEADLIGHT RELAYS - Submitted by 'Convertible Mini'

The best way to wire up headlight relays on a Mini is pretty straight forward.

Using Bosch Mini Realys. Disconnect battery negative terminal first. At the driver's side of the car near the clutch end of the engine find the main harness where the headlight wires go to the front and undo the tape or brading. Find the two wires Bleu with red stripe (low beam) and Blue with white stripe (hi beam). Cut the two at a space of about 2 inches apart.

Now, the two wires coming from the front are your headlight wires hi and low and the two coming from the inside of the car end are the switch wires. Extend both the headlight wires coming from the front with a piece of cable preferably a bit heavier solder them and insulate with tape. PS If you don't have the same colours just write what colours you match to what on a note pad so you can refere to it later. Do the same with the two wires coming from the inside being the switch wires but these you don't need heavier wires actuall smaller will do.

Now you need to get a battery feed to supply the relay contacts. Best place for this on the Mini is at the starter solenoid Battery cable side.

Connect two pieces of Minimum 5mm wire to the same terninal lug to connect to battery supply. Each of these wires has to go through a fuse, so you will need a couple of fuse holders. (Do not use those white Radio type ones they can not handle such current).

Find a suitable mounting spot for the relays and make 2 little black lead to go from the relay #86 terminals to earth on their own mounting screw.

Bunch up and tape all the wiring as neat as possible back to form the original harness that we opened up before to find headlight wires and leave the new added on pieces coming on in one branch. Put suitable crimp on terninals on the ends of all the wires at the right length to go on the relays.

Determine which relay is going to be HI and LOW. Starting with the wires from the two fuses we added to the system connect one to each relay terminal marked 30, Next the two headlight wires which should be the heavier ones we added on one to each relay on terminal marked 87. (note here that these relays might have two terminal marked 87 it does not matter which one you use. next the two wires from the switching side to terminals marked 85.

Make sure you refere to the note you made earlier regarding the wire colours. Make sure you use bleu whites and blue reds on the correct relay tocorrecpond with the headlight wires. After all is back in place and no loose ends left connect the battery and try the headlights. Try not to let the Smoke out of the wires or they will not work.

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