Hello fellow (740)Volvo drivers!
At last I am the new owner of a 1989 745T (almost 200k -- some friends and family members think my wife & I are nuts to have bought a car with such mileage but... it was always garaged and well kept mechanically -- I only had to change 2 tires, battery and headliner). Interested in Volvos since my great uncle brought back to CA one he purchased in Sweden in 1972 (or 73)...
Thanks to brickboard members and website managers (and Swedish friends) (and budget constraints) we narrowed down on a 740 wagon instead of a minivan after the arrival of our 2nd child (...3rd row seat installation will be necessary some day if we want to accommodate more than 1 visitor!)... Great car, if one accepts common ailments (brittle plastic trims/panels and sagging headliner...). My question:
How can I enhance my low beam lights while remaining legal (my night driving is essentially city or highway and I can't use high beams much)? I think the first step would be to use halogen lamps (step 0 would be to get a laser operation, I know - I'm shortsighted). Bulbs currently installed look ancient (original?!). Any advice on brand/model of halogen low beam bulbs available in the US that other 740 drivers are happy with?

I also thought that the poor light emission I get (reflectors/glass are not dirty) --in comparison to our 93 Corolla-- is due to the mere size of the reflector in the 89 740. Maybe if step 1 doesn't work I should try and find headlights from a 90 740 or from a 760 or 940 which are bigger; provided they can be fitted easily and accomodate 2 bulbs for low & high beam (I wouldn't know how to merge wires if same bulb is used for hi/low beam on these models).
Any thoughts from those who have done the conversion or compared night driving with the 4-headlight 740 like mine and other 2-headlight Volvos like 760 would be appreciated. Thanks in advance and long life to the site!!

Thanks to everyone who responded so quickly (and wisely)!
I upgraded the existing sealed lowbeam lights (probably original ie 15 years old -- Wagner Halogen made in Germany) with Silvania XV (extra vision), claiming to be 3x brighter than normal 4656 halogens (less than $10 each at ***mart). I also noticed Phillips HV (high visibility, about $14 a piece at an auto accessory store) claiming 80% more light. The 4656XV make a big difference!! (maybe not 3x better but for sure twice). I can postpone the laser operation...In the process I also checked my highbeams and changed them (one had condensation, the other.... was actually a lowbeam... now I understand why I somtimes had this "bulb failure" indicator on :-)
Rgds

it seems none of us has mentioned the obvious....
old headlights often grow dim before they burn out. Substitute a more recent bulb, and see if it outshines the old ones.

All Advice given so far has been excellent. If I could sum things up, I would do what all of the posters said. That being:

1) Purchase H4/H1 drop in replacement lights for your four beam set up. (similar light patterns to the real E-code lights)

2) Buy a high quality bulb such as the SilverStars or Sylvania Cool Blue lights (no...the "cool Blue" lights are not ricer either)

3) Clean up all the wiring - by that I would rewire the head lights with 12 or 10 gauge and install relays to juice up the system - check out Daniel Sterns site for more info on purchasing lights, wiring them and aiming them. Excellent info!!

4) If after rewiring the system with the above upgrade and you find that you do not have enough light and your state allows, you can effectively upgrade the bulbs to high wattage bulbs (ie 90/100) without the risk of starting a fire.

5) As a last resort or to light up the night like the sun you could install a set of quality over the bumper driving lamps to come on with your high beam set up. (this should be easy as you have done a ton of wiring by now with your headlights ;)

6) If this stuff doesn't help then go for laser eye surgery ;) but I hear that that causes your night vision to change in the presence of bright oncoming lights of other vehicles.

Just my 2 cents. Hope it helps,

Tim

Oh, I forgot to mention don't change over to the DOT later model 740/760 one headlight system. I have both types (740 with 4 beam set up using H4/H1 and a later model 940 with the 2 large DOT lights. To be blunt, the DOT 1 Large lens lights suck like something rotten.

Now if you are talking about 1 large lens E-Code lights then you are talking about a quality light.

You have a few options available to you. You can do what I did and go to Sylvania SilverStars. These lights are a major improvement over the factory halagens. They run between $20 to $25 a piece. You can also go to the european E code lamps. They look just like your lights but have a replaceable halogen
bulb. They run in the $50 to $75 each.

the optional driving lights that mount under the bumperadd quite a bit of light, and are not too hard to find used. They go with a special air dam too.
clean the ground connectors on the fenders just behind the headlight may help.

The first step would be the clean the headlight casings from the inside, as well as the outside. There is some info about this in the FAQ.

The next step is to add a relay into the circuit. Apparently, even though our lights are rated for 55W, due to the wiring of the vehicle, it never actually gets to that 55W.

Someone asked something about this a while back and received a very informative posting. I hope someone here can link you to it, as I did not bookmark it.

P.S. As far as I know, headlamps are always halogen. You may be thinking of xenon enhanced halogen bulbs.
--
Kenric Tam
1990 Volvo 740 base sedan (B230F)
My Volvo 'Project'