Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 2009 11:55:55 -0800
Reply-To:     Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Alistair Bell <albell@SHAW.CA>
Subject:      round headlight/grill install in '86 van
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hi,

managed to get some time to swap in round headlight grill on my '86.

some points to get out of the way first:

van came with stock square headlight set up. previous owner had
installed 100 W inner high beam bulb and added extra ground wires to
chassis. no relays found. the square light grill is in perfect
condition and i don't mind the "look" of the set up, but god, the
light it produces is really bad, esp. low-beams. I had put upgraded
H4s with relays on my '82 years ago and i knew just how much better a
set up that is.

- I bought 2 Hella h4 lamps from Malahat auto wreckers. came with
65/55 W bulbs and were in excellent (nearly new) shape. Ca$20 each
- I bought a round light grill from a fellow listing snow tires on
used Victoria (I bought the Nokian Hakkapellittas CS too). grill has
a couple of chips in slats.

procedure:

- checked wiring diagrams, noted the wiring colour codes same, i.e.
yellow, white, yellow with black, white with black, and of course
brown for ground.
- unscrewed square light mounting frames and cut wires. The inner
high beam lamps do not confuse the swap issue, they are "jumped" to
high beam wire.
- spliced in H4 connector to wires
- screwed in round light frames. The outboard screw holes in body
same as in the square units, the inboard holes used in round frame
are there, but are not used in square frame.
- offered up new grill to body and noted that lower inboard mounting
hole (for square frame) on a riveted sheet metal tab interfered with
grill. Drilled out rivets and removed tab.
- also noted that grill attachment point, the one just inboard or
light frame, is supplied by the square light frame on the '86. On the
'82 that point is a sheet metal tab welded to body. On the '86 there
are pressings in the body locating that tab, but no tab. I will have
to rivet or screw tab to '86 body.
- attached grill as is with those mounting tabs not in place yet.
Grill a little loose, ok as is for now.

And by god, the lights work when switched on :), and not badly aligned.

My next steps are to swap my relays over from the '82 and perhaps pop
in the 100/80 bulbs I used to use. But to tell you the truth, the
65/55 W bulbs and the nice "made in Sweden" Hellas are pretty good as
is. Miles better than the squares.

Couple of other points:

- One of the Hellas came with its rubber moisture boot. This one has
2 tube outlets for drainage, never seen that before. My old H4s
(Bosch) had plain old boots
- Seeing as I had recently re-discovered my jar of anhydrous lanolin,
I used that as "dielectric grease" instead of my usual Dow Corning
silicon grease. I'll see if it does the job as well. I know the
lanolin creeps, it might work better as an anticorrosion treatment in
the splices. Yes, I used butt connectors as I plan on installing
headlight relays up near lights this time, as opposed to the fuse box
location, and i will be re-cutting the wires. I'll run a power feed
up there and thus remove the short run of stock wire from fuse box to
lights. I bet tis not really that much of a concern, the stock wiring
run from fuse box to lights. Indeed I retained that run in my '82
when i was using relays and 100/80 W lights. I had no problem with
melting wires :) and I don't recall a noticeable voltage drop.

Alistair

'86 syncro 7  passenger
'82 westy, diesel converted to gas in '94
http://www.members.shaw.ca/albell/