Need help with a Dodge Charger question.

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Definitely change the switch, they burn up easily. I would change to. LEDS like slantsixdan suggested. Though a good h4 housing and dot bulbs are still an improvement over regular bulbs. I did it myself on my 72 Charger SE. With hidden headlights you need a resistor so the relay knows the lights are not on since LEDs have no resistance.
No need to ruin your wiring or add a bunch of relays.

“Ruin” your wiring? The factory headlight wiring was terrible.

Clearly you’ve never seen @crackedback ’s harnesses. They’re practically artwork, and the relays are a better way to run it.
 
“Ruin” your wiring? The factory headlight wiring was terrible.

Clearly you’ve never seen @crackedback ’s harnesses. They’re practically artwork, and the relays are a better way to run it.


Thanks for the compliment! My kits don't require ruining the oem harness... if someone wants you to cut up your harness, it's not designed to make things easy on you. JMO
Plug and play is the way I try to do things, say no to wire side cutters! :lol:
 
There's a bunch of off-brand junk on the market, that is true, and even among reputable brands you have to be picky. The Hella 5-3/4" H4 is a poor choice, not worthy even at a low-low price; it is extremely weak on low beam—inadequate seeing distance for normal driving speeds (always has been, now worse because the tooling is worn). This cannot be overcome by brute force (high-watt bulb).

The Koito H4 unit (made in Japan) in this 5-3/4" size is particularly good: well-focused and efficient:

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The legitimate ones take H1 bulbs. There are two good Koito options (pic), one decent Hella option, one or two obscure/difficult-to-get other options (not worth the effort), and, here again, a bunch of junk.

View attachment 1715922946


There is also one set of extremely good LED headlamps in this size, a commercial-duty product made extremely well in Korea. They are not advertised, and they are very narrowly available; PM me for more details. Expensive and worth it if you can tolerate the departure from traditional-lamp appearance:

View attachment 1715922945

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The most important things to keep in mind on this:

• Do not fall for the common myth that ECE ("European", "E-code") lamps are necessarily superior to SAE ("DOT", "US-code") lamps. That's wrong; both standards have plenty of room for good headlamps and too much room for bad ones; just the nature of the badness differs. Also disregard the flowery bulk wrap you'll find, trashing the US lamp standard ("ZOMG LOLROFL THEY REQUIRE 25% OF THE LIGHT TO GO UPWARD LAME LOL" etc) and grossly exaggerating the difference between a sealed beam and (say) a particular H4 headlamp (WOW 300% MORE LIGHT WOW SUPER OSSOME etc). The only generalisation on the subject that's reality-based is that good headlamps are better than bad ones, and "good" and "bad" are objective, not subjective.

• While you're busy avoiding the headlite-shaped trinkets, also don't fall for "LED bulbs", blue-glass "whiter light" bulbs, "HID kits", and other such scams. Even then, you still have to be picky; bulb choice matters a lot to how well you can (or can't) see at night. A legit expert I know put up some really good data here; look at the performance difference, especially on low beam, between the standard-wattage, standard-luminance bulb "A" and the standard-wattage, high-luminance (or "high efficacy") bulb "C".

• Whatever lights you install need to be properly fed. If you put in halogen lights, this means relays and sturdy wiring@crackedback to a paging telephone, please. If you put in (legitimate) LED lights, the stock wiring in good condition is plenty adequate.

• Whatever lights you use must be correctly aimed.
Thanks Dan! Muchas grassy ***.
 
“Ruin” your wiring? The factory headlight wiring was terrible.

Clearly you’ve never seen @crackedback ’s harnesses. They’re practically artwork, and the relays are a better way to run it.
No kiddin. It's plug and play. Nothing to "ruin". You can uninstall it and never know it was there, although that would be stupid. lol
 
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“Ruin” your wiring? The factory headlight wiring was terrible.

Clearly you’ve never seen @crackedback ’s harnesses. They’re practically artwork, and the relays are a better way to run it.
Some of us like to keep cars as they were, the shortcomings make the car. Why butcher perfectly good wiring when you can just plug something in and it works simply.
 
Adding headlight relays does not require cutting, changing, or ruining any of the car's wiring.
No it just ads complexity and more failure points, it is 2022 you can put LEDs in a car for less money and hassle than relays also LEDs are a lot brighter and use 1/10 the energy . Relays where neeeded before this technology came out.
 
No it just ads complexity and more failure points

The smart thing is to put together the right balance of the likelihood of a failure and the consequences of a failure. Y'don't just count up the components and go "There, see? More components = more failure points = more bad"; that's not how this works.

it is 2022 you can put LEDs in a car for less money

The math doesn't necessarily work that way. Legitimate, good LED headlamps are expensive, and it's often easy to spend less money on good halogen lamps + a relay installation.

also LEDs are a lot brighter

Nope. LED headlamps are not necessarily better or brighter than halogen headlamps. Good headlamps are better than bad headlamps, period. There are good and bad LED headlamps, and good and bad halogen headlamps.
 
Some of us like to keep cars as they were, the shortcomings make the car. Why butcher perfectly good wiring when you can just plug something in and it works simply.

Sorry, I've lost count; how many people who know more about this than you have told you you're fulla bulk wrap about "butchering" or "ruining" wiring? You're still gonna be wrong about it, no matter how many times you repeat it.

Also, which is it? You like to keep cars the way they were (=sealed beam headlamps and no point participating in this thread), or you want to change the headlamps to something other than the car came with (=be smart about it and remember that guesses, assumptions, and oversimplifications aren't the same thing as facts).
 
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We still don't know what lamps @cruiser has in this car.
This came up because it would be a clue as to whether its more likely the wiring saw higher loads than it was designed for.
That said, the failure description was that the battery circuit was wildly fluctuating from charge to discharge.

Yes original 4001, 4002 would place less load on the system than some later replacements. And my understanding is that depending on the hours of use and condition, some older sealed beams do a better job of putting light on the road than many of the current replacement lamps.... :(

Regardless, in terms of lamp efficiency, a properly built and installed relay harness will reduce the resistance of current to the lamps.
This means less heat in the original connections and wires. Equally important it means less voltage drop on the way from the alternator to the headlight.
The impact of a lamp seeing lower voltage is described here. Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply :)

I'm not against people using original lamps, especially in a car that is meant to be as original as possible. I gave someone an appropriate sealed beam specifically for that purpose. But for those that want more effective lighting for driving at night, its nice to know the options that are technically sound. Just like a lot of replacement parts on the market today, many things are not as well made or even as well designed as they used to be. :(
 
35 posts talking about LED lights, but not fixing the OPs problem, which I stated early in this thread is probably worn out alt brushes. They cannot handle the extra load of the Hi beams.
H/light switches get warm because they switch a lot of current & they have a rheostat that dims the panel lights; depending on where this is set, it will also generate some heat. A warm switch is not necessarily an indicator of failure. If the HL switch [ or dimmer sw] was faulty & causing a bouncing ammeter needle, I would expect the HLs to be flickering, & this has not been reported.
 
35 posts talking about LED lights, but not fixing the OPs problem, which I stated early in this thread is probably worn out alt brushes. They cannot handle the extra load of the Hi beams.
H/light switches get warm because they switch a lot of current & they have a rheostat that dims the panel lights; depending on where this is set, it will also generate some heat. A warm switch is not necessarily an indicator of failure. If the HL switch [ or dimmer sw] was faulty & causing a bouncing ammeter needle, I would expect the HLs to be flickering, & this has not been reported.

Another benefit to the relay kit. No headlight load crossing the bulkhead multiple times and only switching energy to turn on relay, maybe 1/3 amp. Saves the headlight switch and bulkhead from all that heat. Reduces those failure point that makes these cars so adorable...

I do enjoy the butchering comment. I'm sure the guys with original hemi and six pack cars that I've built kits for feel that way, butchered. Even us lowly A body guys. :) A well designed kit is virtually invisible to most people looking in the engine compartment. Some take my kit and wrap it in friction tape. You really have to look for it and the halogens with a relay perform great, many comment they are better than the new vehicles they drive. No cutting EVER with a well designed kit.

In 10+ years I've had one reported failure of a relay and it had NOTHING to do with the relay itself. An acid was sprayed very close and corroded the relay switching mechanisms.

JMO, led lights look like crap in these older cars. Talk about butchery... :) As I say.. pick your parts, pay your money.
 
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Some of us like to keep cars as they were, the shortcomings make the car. Why butcher perfectly good wiring when you can just plug something in and it works simply.
Do you know what plug and play means? I'm guessin no.
 
35 posts talking about LED lights, but not fixing the OPs problem, which I stated early in this thread is probably worn out alt brushes. They cannot handle the extra load of the Hi beams.
H/light switches get warm because they switch a lot of current & they have a rheostat that dims the panel lights; depending on where this is set, it will also generate some heat. A warm switch is not necessarily an indicator of failure. If the HL switch [ or dimmer sw] was faulty & causing a bouncing ammeter needle, I would expect the HLs to be flickering, & this has not been reported.
Thanks for all the good ideas from everyone. As for the alternator, it was professionally rebuilt with new brushes so I think it might be okay. I had an extremely weird failure mode in my Duster last year that was a bit similar to this. The high beam headlights would cut out at night, leaving me going down the dark highway with NO LIGHTS. Very distressing. I instantly hit the floor dimmer switch to cut in the low beams, and the headlights came back on. This happened several times, so I pulled over. As I did, I had an entire electrical failure of the car. Everything went absolutely dead. Nothing. Opened the hood, couldn't find any problems. Five minutes later, I heard a click and the interior lights came back on. I was able to restart and drive the car with the headlights off the rest of the way. Replaced the floor dimmer switch and never again had that problem. It would appear that the main power for the car is routed in through the headlight switch, and that some sort of circuit breaker in the headlight switch cooled enough to reset itself and restore power to the car. Somehow, the dimmer switch was shorting something and overloading this circuit breaker.
 
Agree that relays are a good idea for incandescent HLs, especially a four HL car. Quite a bit of voltage drop through the harness & correctly wired relays will reduce this & give brighter lights. Relays not reqd for LEDs because of the low current draw.
 
Agree that relays are a good idea for incandescent HLs, especially a four HL car. Quite a bit of voltage drop through the harness & correctly wired relays will reduce this & give brighter lights. Relays not reqd for LEDs because of the low current draw.

They still draw more power than would go through the switch with relays. The relay set up isn’t likely to make them brighter like running relays with incandescent lights, but it still lowers the draw on the switch. So it’s still a good idea.
 
They still draw more power than would go through the switch with relays. The relay set up isn’t likely to make them brighter like running relays with incandescent lights, but it still lowers the draw on the switch. So it’s still a good idea.

Indeed

Lots of new cars run LED style lights, I believe every new vehicle has relays to operate headlights. It's more about protecting switches and circuits from potential fatal draws.
 
They still draw more power than would go through the switch with relays. The relay set up isn’t likely to make them brighter like running relays with incandescent lights, but it still lowers the draw on the switch. So it’s still a good idea.
It sure is, plus we have a upstanding member that makes a very high end harness at a really reasonable price. What's not to love?
 
I'll say it again: no need for relay with LED headlights. A 60w LED draws about 1/2 amp. That is a mere 3 amps for a 4 headlight car & 2 amp for a 2 h'light car.
The saving in voltage drop by using a relay, & all the extra trouble of wiring it up, would be sooooooooooo minimal that you would not see the difference in light [ lumens ] output.
Incandescent headlights, different story: typical 35w low beam/55 w hi beam. Four headlights would draw 24 amps, so well worth the trouble of fitting relays.
 
Thanks for all the good ideas from everyone. As for the alternator, it was professionally rebuilt with new brushes so I think it might be okay. I had an extremely weird failure mode in my Duster last year that was a bit similar to this. The high beam headlights would cut out at night, leaving me going down the dark highway with NO LIGHTS. Very distressing. I instantly hit the floor dimmer switch to cut in the low beams, and the headlights came back on. This happened several times, so I pulled over. As I did, I had an entire electrical failure of the car. Everything went absolutely dead. Nothing. Opened the hood, couldn't find any problems. Five minutes later, I heard a click and the interior lights came back on. I was able to restart and drive the car with the headlights off the rest of the way. Replaced the floor dimmer switch and never again had that problem. It would appear that the main power for the car is routed in through the headlight switch, and that some sort of circuit breaker in the headlight switch cooled enough to reset itself and restore power to the car. Somehow, the dimmer switch was shorting something and overloading this circuit breaker.
My Valiant did exactly the same thing after I installed a Hella H4 halogen conversion kit. Now mind you, this was before I installed @crackedback's conversion harness, so the headlight switch was handling the full load of the headlight circuit. Something it was not designed to do even with the stock lighting, much less the upgraded Hellas I installed. As long as I kept them on dim, all was well.

I got crackedback's conversion harness and installed it and that took care of it 100% and also made them much brighter, since I was now getting alternator voltage to the headlights. I later upgraded to the genuine Cibie 7" E code lights later on. Although the Hellas are good, they are still not as good as the Cibies.

I agree with the others though, that you should find out what's going on first, before you upgrade anything.
 
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