sealed beam unit not very bright

[deano69]

Hello all, wonder if any of you can help with this...

Headlight on drivers side is not very bright, looks almost yellow and is probably less than 1/5th the strength of the other sides unit.I've changed them round and get the same thing when using a light unit that works fine in the other side, so im guessing its not the sealed beam unit at fault but there is light, just not a lot, so power is getting through.

Any ideas of what to do to right it?The lights were an advisory on the MOT-'Poor beam pattern o/s and n/s', but i've no idea what a beam pattern is and as it applied to both its not referring to whats occuring now.....Time to upgrade to halogens?

Cheers in advance.

Dean

[bmcecosse]

Bad earth - so it's finding earth through the second filament - hence the dull glow........

[mike.perry]

If the unit is dim on dip and main beam then it is likely to be an earthing fault, probably a bullet connector or the attachment to the inner wing.
The light alignment is tested with an adjustable mirror. This checks that the lights are adjusted so that they do not dazzle oncoming vehicles. Presumably this was what he meant by beam pattern. Normally the beam pattern refers to the spread of light from the headlights but the tester would not be able to check this in daylight

[Dean]

I would suspect earth too for the dim lights. Take out the inner wing bullet (do both sides), clean and vaseline both male and female connector. I would ask the garage to adjust the beam for you, mine didn't charge as I took the chrome covers off for them.

[lambrettalad]

check it with a volt meter,on other earthing points ,does this make a difference?

[Alec]

Hello Dean,

"Time to upgrade to halogens?"

I think halogens are a worth while modification but they won't work any better than sealed beams with poor connections. The first thing to worry about is getting all connections clean and tight.

Alec

[deano69]

Cheers.60 seconds with a wire brush and its sorted-took longer to find the thing than to do it.....

[bmcecosse]

Smear some vaseline on it.....