The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks Headlight question? First night ride yesterday!

Could barely see the road without the high beams on! Any thoughts on replacing the headlights so I can see at night? This is for my '61 Apache. Thanks

Might be the headlights themselves. Most likely it is a need for better connections, especially the ground.

The first thing that will help your headlights is to attach the harness ground wires to a common ground, that in turn connects to the engine block where the negative battery cable bolts on. The factory arrangement of grounding to the sheetmetal was marginal when new, and barely works when old and deteriorated.

The next step up is the addition of headlight relays. The process is relatively simple and inexpensive. The benefit being the headlights receive full battery voltage from the relays, and the headlight and dimmer switches last longer since they no longer handle high amperage loads, they simply turn the relays on and off.

Here's a thread that explain how perform the install:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=387693&highlight=headlight

The addition of relays makes a world of difference in light output, and if you still run a generator, the lights will no longer brighten and dim with the speed of the engine. With relays the lights remain constant regardless of engine speed. If you drive the truck much at night this should be a must have upgrade.

If you want to upgrade to halogen sealed beams, you should really rewire the headlight harness with 14 gauge wiring. The factory harness came with a 14 ga high beam circuit, 18 ga low beam and 20 ga grounds. This is inadequate even for stock lights, and should be upgraded to 14 gauge throughout if you ever want to run more powerful bulbs.

Thanks, yes still running with a generator.Will put this on my to do list and stick to daytime driving until then.

If your hi-beam were bright you probally don't have a ground problem, just a adjustment problem, pull up to a garage door turn the lights on and see where they point. Check your Chilton manuel and see the proper way to adjust them. Granted the new lights are far superior to the old but if they are not adjusted properly they are not much good either. The Cool Blue's are great behind the steering wheel but coming at you they arent cool at all if not adjusted properly.

Anyone have the info I need to adjust the headlights on my '61 ?

if i remember correctly, adjusting headlights was pretty easy, measure the distance from the center of the headlight to the ground, on level ground about 20 feet from a garage door or wall, mark a spot at the same measurment as your headlights, sighting down the left body edge of your truck from the back fender you can pick up a reference spot for the left and right to go with the up and down from the headlight measurment, intersect the two lines, makes a cross, low beam shines in lower right square, high beam in upper left..