Hello all,

My 1968 Ford XL has hide-a-way headlamps and they are pretty well done, as in stick a fork in them well done. They are dim and the housings are both broken; broken probably from (1) decades of actuating and the rubber-stop pads turning hard and falling out and from (2) the housings slamming into each other from the ridiculous weight of the headlamp doors — about 5 pounds a piece.

This overhaul will be a two faceted approach of 1.) rebuilding another decent set of hide-a-way headlamp assemblies and 2.) upgrading the bulbs and wiring for a much higher wattage.

The old bulbs weren't so bad 20 years ago when everyone sported just a regular halogen bulb, but then between the automakers upping the lumens of their headlamps and the aftermarket offering the same, some of the cars and trucks (new and used) have ridiculously bright headlamps.

I had a look at the federal standard for automotive lighting FMVSS 108 and, with the exception of some of the aftermarket garbage upgrades, the OEM's are more than likely following the rules even with their insanely bright headlamps. Ford F-series pickups I'm really looking at you!

Well as the saying goes, can't beat em, join em. I'll be happy to return to a lower wattage bulb if the rules are changed to limit the lumen output more. But until then, it's war and I intend to win.

I've already done this upgrade with our huge old crappy Dodge Power Wagon. As an overview of what I plan to do for the old Fords, I'll show what I did on the '79 Power Wagon first.

I've attached the US FMVSS 108 document in case anyone is really interested in reading what the rules are. It's a dry read and set up for engineers but I trust most can muddle through it.

Ok, so the Dodge uses a 4 rectangular headlamp setup, but the procedure is the same for 4 round headlamps. First I had to buy a composite headlamp assembly that would house an H4 bulb. So I found some and I found the round versions too for the old Fords.

So it's time to toss the old sealed beams that were so dim on this thing that the running lamps were sadly nearly as bright. Well that and it's a Chrysler product with a hideously designed and implemented wiring system. So these are the composite headlamps and the H4 bulb goes in from behind, like a modern car. Only these are glass lenses and they won't yellow like cheaply made lens for new expensive cars and trucks. Can you feel the bias?

The bulbs that came with the headlamps were 60/55 watt (60 watt high beam and 55 watt low beam) and they were blue tinted. A couple things of interest are that I wanted more than 60/55 watt and oddly enough the brand new windscreen we put in this large old truck ended up attenuating the bluish light looking through it at night. That's right it was brighter sticking your head out the door window than looking through the windscreen.

To rectify this, I bought clear (no tint) 140/100 watt halogens. So 140 watt high beams and 100 watt low beams. Now were talking, F-series pickups I'm coming for you. The other interesting thing with these aftermarket headlamps is they are not keyed for low/high and high. They are all low/high. With that all 4 headlamps are the same and you can run all 4 low beams if you wire them in (and it's legal too). I wired these to use a separate toggle on the inside of the cab if you want to turn on 2 or 4 low beams and, of course, the foot switch functions normally to select low or high.

It's really difficult with photography to get an idea of just how ridiculously bright the 4 high beams are (that's 560 watts of halogens). But this is a sunny New Mexico bright day outside and the camera saturated the headlamps and the sky. I reduced the saturation till the sky wasn't saturated and you can tell by judging the intensity of the headlamps to the sunlight as to just how stupid bright they are.

Perfect.

We've been working on this old turd of a Dodge to bring it back from the near dead and get it road legal and safe. After two solid months of working on it, it's road worthy and we've already played headlamp wars with someone who wouldn't turn their brights off at night. It was a lady in a newer car and her lights were bright. But unfortunately for her not nearly as bright as these as we demonstrated driving past her and honestly they lit up the entire inside of her car. It looked like an alien abduction. Oh god was that funny. She probably wasn't happy. Maybe next time she'll turn the brights off for oncoming traffic. The last thing you really want to see is this pissed off looking beat up 1-ton with blinding headlamps coming at you in the dead of night.

In a nut shell, I want this on our '68 XL, '66 LTD and '66 gal 500 XL. Yuppers I really do.

Now obviously with that high wattage the stock wiring, especially in a Chrysler product, would produce very angry pixies. So in order to make everything safe, reliable, and to minimize the voltage drop to the headlamps and maximize brightness, relays with automatic resetting circuit breakers must be used direct to the battery.

For the truck I bought a generic relay/ATO fuse block. I also bought ceramic sockets because those bulbs get bloody hot.

It's a little kit and you make your own harness. I used 12 gauge feed wires for the headlamps. The upper low beams on one relay and C.B., the lower low beams on another relay and C.B. and all 4 high beams on another relay and C.B.

Something like this needs to be done for the old Fords, so I'll get cracking.

This is what is currently in the '68 Ford XL. The lower mounts are broken off the housing as it ripped and cracked the metal. The previous owner just shoved a bunch of crappy hoses and rubber with zip ties and oh boy is it horrible.

The other side is no better. The headlamps aren't aimed properly but everything is so baked on this car I'm afraid of trying to adjust them as the plastic threaded base would probably shatter and the headlamps fall out. I'm not even going to attempt to anything with these except replace the whole thing — both sides.

This is going to take some explaining. I have enough aftermarket composite headlamps to do all three old Fords. So that explains the '66 housings in the picture. I have 3 full extra sets of '68 hide-a-way headlamps. One set is still on the '68 XL parts car so I'll try to use the two loose sets I have here to make one good set. One of these sets came from a '68 LTD parts car we once had.

I know I've said this in the past, but a parts car can be worth it's weight in gold sometimes. That old '68 Ford LTD donated more parts than I ever thought possible. For 500 bucks of cost, that car easily yielded more than 5,000 dollars of hard to find and expensive parts, including a factory Z code 390 engine.

I originally bought these composite bulbs for the '66 LTD some time ago. They are a bit garish looking, so I found something more suitable for the '66's that always present the headlamps.