Date:         Mon, 5 Aug 1996 23:46:16 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         cmoran@cswnet.com (Colin A Moran)
Subject:      86 Square headlights

Hello all!!
     I have been following the headlight upgrade thread with interest.  I
like the looks of the square headlights, and wanted to improve their
performance.  I remember one of the posts that stated that going to a higher
wattage bulb did little to improve the low beams.  I started to wonder why.
I removed my headlights and removed the bulb assembly.  I found a
cylindrical shield that covered most of the bulb.  There was a hole in the
end that was slightly larger than the bulb.  There seemed to be little of
the bulb exposed to the reflector.  I have seen these shields on other round
headlights.  The differance seems to be that on the VW lights, most of the
bulb is shielded, where as on the other lights only the front of the low
beam fillement is shielded.  I removed the sides of the cylindrical shield
with a set of needle nose pliers.  I retained the shield infront of the
bulb, I don't want to blind on comming drivers.  I have noticed an increased
light output.  The beam is much stronger on a horizontal plane.  It realy
lights up the sides of the road.  I hane not had any oncomming drivers flash
me, so I'll assume that I have not created a hazard by removing the shields.
This seems to be a cheap way of improving the square headlights.  If anyone
has any comments on this modification please let me know.