You guys with the late-model 240s can sympathize. I want to improve the light cast onto the road while driving at night. I've considered various headlight conversions (Euro, truck, and Kane's), but I don't want to do any of them. The first means I would have to change out the turn signals and thus lenses (amber, from Volvo truck), the second is exorbitantly expensive, and Kane's involves a bit of cutting, scrounging for parts, and other stuff that I have a huge potential to mess up. So, I would like to consider my auxiliary driving light options.

The problem is that there are so many options. Yesterday I spent a little while going through PIAA, Hella, and Bosch sites, and I must say I was overwhelmed. PIAA's site, though having cool little diagrams for all of the types of fog and driving lights, just made me realize that I have no idea what kind of light I could use in conjunction with my headlight's low beams.

Has anyone combined driving lights with the giant plastic USA headlights? Was there a noticeable improvement? Where did you mount them, and how?

I know that I need to go with a well-established brand. ipd has two different types that I've considered, but I heard someone earlier here say that they were a bit expensive. I would readily trust a product from them, but I know that PIAA and the others are just as good. What have you done?
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'89 244 GL--25/22 ipd sways, Volvo truck amber turn signal lenses

Best lights I've ever had were a set of Cibie "Z- Beams",on my 75 245 (7" rounds). Low beam was like high beam...no bother to on coming vehicles, and high beam was just incredible. Cut off at the hood, yet a nice wide pattern what seem like at least 600+ yards. It was really nice to be able to use high beam in fog/ snow/ rain and have no glare back. I regret letting them go with the car.

I understand ( D.Stern's site) that they are still available.....but costly. But hey, whats it worth to be able to see where your heading ?

Seeing what Kane did ...I just may go that direction and get a set of "Z-Beams".

Twoforty

My swap did NOT involve any cutting - just four holes to drill. The toughest thing to get are the headlight mounts - everything else was sourced from my local Ace Hardware (nuts/bolts, washers, L-brackets for the lights, and velcro), anywhere where you can purchase some acrylic box frames (online, in my case for 8x12's), and the desk of your fellow cubicle dweller for small binder clips.

-- Kane ... who says you can't build a better life by stealing office supplies? :)
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Blossom II - '91 745Ti/M46 ... Bubbles - '74 144GL/BW35 ... Buttercup - '86 245GL/AW70 ... The Wayback Machine - '64 P220/M40

Here's an pic with 8x12 box frames edited in and the original 240 (repaired and meshed in my instance) grill. The remaining gap will be approximately 1-1/2".



-- Kane ... and correction - 6 holes to drill. 1 each in the corner lights, 1 each on the chassis, and 1 each on the headlight backplates.
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Blossom II - '91 745Ti/M46 ... Bubbles - '74 144GL/BW35 ... Buttercup - '86 245GL/AW70 ... The Wayback Machine - '64 P220/M40

I had read some of the Daniel Stern articles, but I went back and reviewed, just to make sure.

Good call on checking the laws of the state. Believe it or not, South Carolina allows not more than one driving lamp and not more than one passing lamp to be mounted. They allow two fog lamps, but I would think that a car with only one "passing" lamp would look kind of funny, besides not being very effective.

However, the reading a bit from everyone has made me decide against getting them. Most additional lights, except for apparently the "passing" lamps, are meant to be used with the high beams alone, and I'm just looking for stuff to augment the low beams. The high beams work well enough.

Perhaps this summer I'll take a look at the whole headlight setup to see if I'm up to the task of a conversion. If all you did was drill some holes and everything fit in pretty easily (minimum of "filler" material and splicing wires; you've made it sound easy, so I've bookmarked relevant threads), then perhaps I'll try to grab two headlight mounts off an old Brick. I'd love to get some Cibie headlights in there. (Why can't they make something that fits in the US assembly? They could make a killing off of the Brickboard alone!) For now, I'll just drive carefully at night.
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'89 244 GL--25/22 ipd sways, Volvo truck amber turn signal lenses

The wires are temporarily scotch-locked to the existing headlight plug - I'll be swapping over to a 3-relay setup (2 for the low beams to prevent the bulb-out sensor from lighting up and one for the high beams) when the covers come in tomorrow or Monday.

Down the line, I may just design (in AutoCAD) some headlight adapters and get them sourced with headlight buckets. But for now, this is it.

-- Kane
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Blossom II - '91 745Ti/M46 ... Bubbles - '74 144GL/BW35 ... Buttercup - '86 245GL/AW70 ... The Wayback Machine - '64 P220/M40

Some general guidance:

You need to consider the type of driving you do, in order to choose the appropriate auxiliary lighting. True fog lights have a relatively short-range beam with a wide-angle spread, and a very sharp vertical cutoff. They are mounted low, typically below the bumper, in order to minimize the reflection of light from water droplets (or snowflakes) back into the driver's eyes. Due to the broad beam spread, they are somewhat useful as 'cornering' lights, but they don't light up the road hundreds of feet ahead. Hence if you do a lot of high-speed driving at night, these won't help much.

Pencil beams are the opposite. These are tightly-focused, long-range beams, typically with a round (actually conical) beam pattern. These are great for lighting up the Lausanne Straight at LeMans or for driving relatively straight roads with no oncoming traffic.

Driving lights fall somewhere in between, but from what I've seen most are closer to pencil beams than fogs. Beam pattern is narrower than fogs and usually has a sharp vertical cutoff to minimize dazzling oncoming traffic - but you should still turn these lights off if you have oncoming traffic, unless you aim them downward, which then limits their usefulness for lighting distant objects. Driving and pencil beams are mounted at about the same height as the headlamps.

About 10 years ago, Hella marketed their "XL" lamps, which functioned as "extra" low beams. Although rectangular, their beam pattern emulated that of the European low beams (which we dearly covet for our Bricks) with a good beam spread, sharp vertical cutoff, and a 15 degree rise to the right. I mounted these on 3 cars, a Jetta and two 245's. The size was reasonable, I could mount them above the bumper to minimize damage from stones (and my wife's "park by Braille" technique). They didn't have quite the range I would have preferred, but with proper aiming I did not have to turn them off for oncoming traffic, and they gave me a pretty good carpet of light for maybe 30 yards ahead of the car. They enhanced - but did not replace - the stock, awful low beams on the late-model 240's. Sadly, these are no longer available except by chance on eBay.

Like so many other thinking and motivated Bricksters I have pondered other options for lighting. From available market offerings, if I had the money I would probably pick the PIAA dual-beam lamps (fog and driving) and take my chances by mounting them below the bumper. Absent oncoming trafic, a pair of Hella Super Oscars mounted above the bumper would be my choice.

As the other respondent mentioned, check out anything Daniel Stern has written re automotive lighting.

What does your state say when it comes to auxillary driving lights?

This is what California has to say about 'em ...

And have you read up the articles at Daniel Stern Lighting yet?

-- Kane
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Blossom II - '91 745Ti/M46 ... Bubbles - '74 144GL/BW35 ... Buttercup - '86 245GL/AW70 ... The Wayback Machine - '64 P220/M40