The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay 6 Volt Headlights/Headlamps

I know a lot of people like to convert their vehicles from 6v to 12v.

One of the reasons often mentioned is to get better/brighter headlights. Some people complain that the 6v lights are too dim and dangerous. I wish to dispel that myth

Last night I drove 40 miles from my mom's house out in the country to my home in downtown Atlanta. The first 15 miles is in total darkness with no streetlights.

Anyway, the 6v headlamps on my truck shine as brightly and as far as any modern vehicle's lights.

I believe the 6v system is often automatically scapegoated for dim lights and slow starter turnover as an excuse to convert to a 12v system when in reality the culprit is likely crappy 2 or 4 gauge battery cables, worn out wiring, and old headlamps.

I installed Wagner 6v halogen headlamps. They aren't the obnoxious blue light or ugly LEDs. I recently wired the headlamps all the way to the cowl with new 12ga wire and new lamp sockets. When I got the truck I immediately replaced the battery cables with 00ga cable.

Not only do the headlamps and tail lamps shine as brightly as modern cars, the original dome light lights up the interior brighter than my 12v Ford pickups, and the starter spins as fast as any of my 12v vehicles.

I'm not trying to tell people 6v is better than 12v but I think people could save a lot of time and money by making sure their 6v system is in top working order rather than scrapping the whole system and converting to 12v.

Getting the performance you desire from your truck might be as simple as changing your battery cables and installing 6v halogen headlights.

Otto, you hit solidly on some good points. I still drive with 6 volt on my 53 truck, for the reasons you stated. Recently had to replace an 8 year old battery, a slightly weak 6 V battery will tend to show itself earlier than on a 12 volt system it seems. These trucks have room enough to run two 6 V batteries in parallel.

Hey bartamos, what happened to your post? It came up on my phone but I couldn't respond until I got home to my computer this evening.

Yes, I do refer to the truck as "my truck" even though it belongs to a friend of mine. It's been in my care for a year and a half or so while I've been bringing it up to drive-able condition. He also lives in an apartment/condominium with no place to park it so it will probably be with me for awhile.

Maybe it was a PM you sent me instead of a post. I'll have to check.

I was just looking at doing 12v upgrade just for this reason. do you happen to have part # for Wagner bulbs? their website search doesnt go back far enough. thanks for post. i will give a try before changing everything over. also what is truck year/model that you did this on to confirm bulb compatibility with mine?

Just pulling your chain and decided it was too off topic.

Like Otto said... I have a 00 pos to the starter, 00 grnd to the bellhousing, 0 from bellhousing to frame and a garden tractor ground from frame to firewall. Everything is bright and starter sings.

Hi GB, The truck is a 1950 3100. I hope this post saves you some time and money. Be sure your battery is fully charged and holds it and that your generator and voltage regulator are working correctly, too. When they're all working in sync together,the 6v system is as good as any 12v system.

The headlight box says WAG-H6006 for the part number.

I purchased them from Classic Parts. https://www.classicparts.com/1941-54-Headlamp-Bulb-6-Volt-Halogen/productinfo/54%2D004/

Rock Auto sells Phillips Halogen and Wagner 6v bulbs too. The bulbs that I replaced were an original Guide T3 bulb and a Phillips. They were both dim yellow.

Jethro above did the right thing with his cables. 00 everywhere and good grounds.

From previous reads, I understood either the flywheel ring gear is different, or the starter gears are different for 6v vs. 12v. The engine I ordered came with 12v starter and generator (Chrysler!!). I ASSumed the ring gear that came with the engine was for the 12v starter. I tried reverting back to my original 6v starter and generator but incurred very slow cranking and super-hot starter. I was lucky to get it fired up just once. As above, I replaced with new thicker cables. Got fed up and put back on the 12v. Now engine fires right up and runs every time.

Thank you for the reply. i also found that bulb on amazon. Should be perfect for my 48 3100. Since we are approaching snow season here in Wisconsin I will have plenty of time to play with grounds and would like nothing more than to keep this truck as stock as possible. with the help of this forum i was able to get the horn to work so light issues should be no problem also!

Do your lights turn on both hi and lo beam? Just dim?

The Wagner and Philips bulbs are the same specification and output the same light more or less.
However the Wagner one is much lower quality and on average will fail much sooner
The Philips bulb is the way to go
There will be anecdotes about the opposite happening
However until you have gone through a dozen I don’t care about your 1 data point.
For anyone that heeds my warning you are welcome in advance.
The only other brand that I would also recall being absolutely a waste of time and money is Eiko brand which makes Wagner look awesome.
Sylvania used to be good but lately in the last decade I’ve been let down a few too many times so I’m on the fence with them now.

Walmart sells the Philips 6v headlight for the best price
You buy it online and pick it up at a near by Walmart
Do not mix other purchases with it, the bulbs will be broken often on their own
If they are broke just process the return immediately at pick up time, but that’s a Walmart issue not the brand or manufacture.
-s

How about a part # on the Phillips 6V headlights? Fair sale price from Wally World?

Rock Auto sells the Phillips 6v as well. Philips H6006

I just tried to find it now and I can’t seem to bring it up on Wally Mart so maybe they don’t carry it anymore
It was about a year now since I last purchased some.
Hopefully someone else picks up the item to supply us .

Image of product attached.

I see it’s a generic photo of the wrong bulb but the H6006 is the same packaging

Rock Auto sells them for $11

https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/chevrolet,1950,truck,3.5l+217cid+l6,1487136,electrical-bulb+&+socket,headlamp+bulb,11701

That’s a decent price I don’t think you will beat it anywhere you should be trusting with a credit card info
So rock auto wins, do it
-s

I have run 6 volt on my 46 for years with zero problems. Going to 12 volts is a mistake, if you do as indicated above 6 volt works very good. Unfortunately more vintage trucks are losing their original electrical systems do to lack of basic electrical knowledge.
Mark Small,
Retired electrical engineer.

hi and lo beams both work, although cant tell much of a difference. both are way too dim to safely drive at night, like they barely illuminate the road at all. battery new May 2022. Starter spins quickly and interior, tail lights seem to be sufficiently bright. Sounds like i need to start with halogen bulbs, upgrade grounds and continue on with checking connections at headlight, dimmer switch etc. entire truck got new wiring harness done by previous owner so there may be more going on here.

Otto Skorzeny If you recall (yours does this) with 7 inch stock headlamps on dim it lights the white line very well,on bright it lights well on down the road. Now with these hi-powered new lights they can see but if you meeting them can't see what then?? And then there is the offroad illegal lighting people!! On 12 volt switchover I do it for alt. ,HEI,accessories,to each his own if you like to use the old systems nothing wrong with that. I fought em the first time and appreciate the modern upgrades also on the road more likely to get repairs. My humble opinion on the matter.

2ManyTrucks On 7 inch headlamps I used to buy em at the 55 year junkyard for 1$ each,saved up several ,so now have pretty good supply of used NOS bulbs. They don't make em like they used to,wash up an old one it'll last you a long time !! Usually try for a pair,same brand.

Yeah I collect old ones when they are basically free
But watch out how much you pay or test them first on actual battery power not just ohm meter

I’ve found perfect spare headlights in rotten box under the seat that ohm out good
But in the decades they have been in the truck and weathered air gets in through the pins at the back
Put power to the bulb and it fills with thick white smoke as the filament burns in the air.

But for a $1 usually worth the risk for sure, I’d buy most any headlight bulb for that price.
-s

Last night. Standard 6v system with standard bulbs

Another way to look at it is how many Lumens (the unit of light measurement) does your headlight provide? For example, a 6 volt incandescent bulb at 6 amps can produce the same amount of Lumens as a 12 volt incandescent bulb at 3 amps.

The weakness of the 6 volt system is that it is more susceptible to resistances. Battery post, starter post, ammeter in, ammeter out, headlight switch in, headlight switch out, inner fender terminal strip, headlight socket contacts and the wiring itself all are a source of resistance. At 6 amps, these resistances cause a voltage drop that impacts the available headlight voltage more on a 6 volt system than the 3 amps of a 12 volt system. When our trucks were new, there was no problem. Time, moisture, dirt/dust and corrosion is a lot of the reason for the complaints and comments of today. Elbow (cleaning) and dielectric are the greases that I consider the low cost solution. Switching over to a 12 volt system, keeping the original components, the resistances are still there but they have less impact. Most conversions to a 12 volt system include a complete rewiring so most of the resistance issues have been removed.

In going from incandescent headlights to halogen headlights, the bulb current is about the same (I have not verified this). Halogen is brighter to the eyes. The plus side of Halogen is that the bulb lasts longer.

Not trying to hack your thread, if i am i can start a new one. Results thus far, Installed new wagner bulbs in truck. they were slightly brighter than old but no big improvement. started checking voltage. Approximately 4v at fender terminal strip, 4.5 before headlight fuse, 5v at power supply to headlight switch, 5.9v at battery with engine idling. drove about 25 miles, parked for 15 minutes and battery was too dead to turn over engine. so clearly i have more issues to deal with here. taught boys how to push start a truck and was able to drive home with no headlights. going to pull, charge and test battery first but i suspect issues all along have been with generator or voltage reg. have only taken short rides during daylight this past 6 months so dont think i pulled enough juice out of battery to finally deplete it until yesterday. Not looking to do 12v conversion as many have suggested. call me a purist or just enjoy suffering through electrical issues if you wish. rather i enjoy the troubleshooting and learning through this forum.

Test the battery with the engine running to see if generator is actually charging the battery at all.

When you take the generator to the rebuild shop, take the voltage regulator as well. Let them test both units.

GB. Do the easy things first. I would take the battery to my FLAPS that has a battery analyzer/charger (not just a resistive load tester).
The test takes about 45 minutes and it is free. A charged 6V battery at idle will read around 7.5V.
If the system is not charging it is easy to tell by watching the ammeter.

buoymaker Learned a new thing on Walmart batteries,you've seen those month and year stickers on their batteries ?? Bought a new one put it right on the charger,took about 6 amps,came back after a while still 5or6 amps ! I think those are sulfated,now those stickers are cheap !! So returned it,went to the 55 year junkyard bought about a 1 year old battery 40$ took about 6 amps but soon dropped to about an amp. Installed it really whip it over,put on charger came right back up ! So conclude you better check even new ones over for age especially in these hard times.

Took battery in to FLAPS, tested great. Went through connections on truck, cleaned everything up, still not charging. Brought gen and vr into rebuilding shop in town, gen is making juice but vr is junk. Was a sweat shop made unit which would fall into HRL's category of wrong. points didnt line up very squarely and were burnt pretty bad. He suggested finding a new one rather than trying to make it work. so over weekend i hastily jumped on ebay and found 2 NOS Delco units in unopened packaging. Thinking having 2 was a great idea i ordered both. Then it dawned on me this morning, never checked part #'s to verify they were correct 1118830 and 1118314. the listings were not very clear but i believe both are positive ground units. Not correct for my negative ground truck. So back to searching. rather than shell out some more cash for parts i dont need figured i would ask for some help from the experts. Some info to begin with, generator tag says 1102667 8G 9. 6 volt negative ground wiring. another listing that looked promising was
https://www.ebay.com/itm/393249104751?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28
in pictures i can see it stamped 6V but thought it should also have a P or N for ground type?

I think that 6v LED Harley Davidson headlights are available?

I think they are the same size as 47-54 Chevrolet truck headlights?

There is an American -made 6v VR available today. I put one on my truck in the spring. Let me find the part number and maker.

Negative ground 6v regulator Part number is 231-12020

I'll have to go find the box it came in for the brand. I think it's Regitar or something like that.

As you can see, GM switched 6v VR covers to the same style as the new 12v covers when they were introduced. Your original blue cover won't fit on the new VR.

All the mounting holes are the same, however.


Be sure to use the rubber insulators on the mounting bolts from your old VR if the new one doesn't come with them. They usually do, though.