Morris Minor Owners Club

I've been gradually replacing the bulbs on my Traveller with LEDs, to reduce the strain on the wiring, and to be a bit more visible in modern traffic, as cars seem to be lit up like Christmas trees these days, even in broad daylight.

The last bulbs to change are the halogen headlights; they draw a hell of a lot of power, and every time I flash my headlights, the radio switches off, which is getting quite annoying. So when I saw that Classic Car LEDs were selling MOT compliant warm white bulbs, I took the plunge.
Here's a comparison, in case it helps anyone - low beam, with LED on the left...
...and high beam. The only problem I had installing them is that each bulb comes with a control box, about the size of a box of Swan Vestas. Cramming it, and all the wiring, into the small space left in the headlamp bowl was challenging, to say the least. The supplier says that the wiring and control box won't be affected by the heat coming off the bulb's heatsink, but long term I want to find a way of mounting the control box inside the wing.

Like most Minor jobs, a little dismantling revealed more things to fix. There's only a little superficial rust in the wing itself, thankfully, but the headlamp bowl, inner rim and the focusing screws/springs are all rusted together and starting to crumble, so I'm going to have to replace them all soon.

Is there any important difference between the metal and plastic headlight bowls available from the main suppliers? I'd like to replace with plastic, ideally, just to avoid it all becoming a rusty mess again in a few years time...

Seb

Well, as regards the headlamp bowls, when I changed my SII ('55) headlamps from Halogen to LED, I discovered that Basil had one of each, a Plastic and a Metal. There seems to be no difference.

Since your car has post '63 sidelights, I'm not sure what halogen bulbs you had fitted, but I'm intrigued by your 'MOT Compliant' remark. What MOT requirement exactly are they compliant with?
I've seen ClassicCarLEDs advertise their lamps as RoHS compliant, which is an EU environmental directive, but I've no idea what applies now, post Brexit.

The MOT requirements changed this year, see here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=73440&hilit=MOT+Lighting#p666092
Luckily the ban on replacing Halogen lamps with LED now only applies to cars post April 1986.

Odd that your LEDs have such a large additional 'box'. The ones I fitted had no such incumbents. Here's a comparison photo I took a couple of years ago when I changed them.

Hi Berni,

Yep, I was looking at your thread and video about LED lamps while I was making up my mind, and I couldn't see any control boxes. These are the ones I got, presumably there's a good reason for the ICs on these particular bulbs so I won't try to get rid of them!

https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/collec ... am-pattern

Yep, I saw that the rules had been clarified around LED bulbs - MOT compliant is probably the wrong phrase, what I meant is that these bulbs have the same dimensions and dip beams as the H4 bulbs I'm replacing, whereas some of the cheap LED units from the far east on eBay look a bit iffy and might not pass muster.

Thanks for confirming that the plastic bowls are a straight swap, I'll start shopping for the bits.

Seb

Late to the party but I'm interested in fitted suitable LED replacement headlamp bulbs provided they do indeed do the job.

My concern is the beam pattern on the road: it's pointless to me that the lights appear brighter when looking into the glass lenses if I cannot see in front of me when driving!

The light emitted from incandescent bulbs is omnidirectional, i.e. even all the way around, and is only masked by the metalwork, i.e. reflectors, around the bulb. The light emitted from LEDs is directional. Thus I'm asking about beam pattern and perhaps making sure that oncoming drivers are not dazzled.

With the LED headlamps fitted can you see as well on both dipped and main beam as the halogen lights; and do other drivers flash you when on dipped beam? I.e. do they perform as well as the advert says?

I can see the point of LED headlamps in terms of easing the load on the alternator, dynamo and/or engine, but I need to be convinced that they are comparable with halogen bulbs in terms of beam pattern.

tomb1963 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:11 am Late to the party but I'm interested in fitted suitable LED replacement headlamp bulbs provided they do indeed do the job.

My concern is the beam pattern on the road: it's pointless to me that the lights appear brighter when looking into the glass lenses if I cannot see in front of me when driving!

There are a lot of replacement lamps out there. I made a short video about the ones I eventually installed in Feb 2020, showing the sort of things that have to be considered on installing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQQD9U6BWzw

geoberni wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:45 am

tomb1963 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:11 am Late to the party but I'm interested in fitted suitable LED replacement headlamp bulbs provided they do indeed do the job.

My concern is the beam pattern on the road: it's pointless to me that the lights appear brighter when looking into the glass lenses if I cannot see in front of me when driving!

There are a lot of replacement lamps out there. I made a short video about the ones I eventually installed in Feb 2020, showing the sort of things that have to be considered on installing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQQD9U6BWzw

Nice video! I think for the time being I stick with what I've got as it I go out infrequently in the dark. But thanks for taking the time to show me what I could do.

I have just replaced all of my exterior lights with LEDs. There are LED headlight bulbs available now that are a direct swap for an H4 bulb and they do not have an extra controller with any concern about where to mount that. A very straightforward process as easy as changing a halogen H4 bulb. I found 2x cracked light lenses and that a lot of the old incandescent bulbs were "sooted up" on the inside. Some bulbs are polarity sensitive so the correct positive or negative earth bulb has to be ordered. LED flasher bulbs do not draw enough current to flash the lights correctly with the original Lucas bimetallic strip type flasher so this has to be changed for an electronic version (which is as easy as changing the original flasher). I got all my bulbs from CDRC (Classic Dynamo and Regulator Conversions). Their website is terrible to navigate but Pete is very helpful and the bulbs are excellent. I do drive at night quite often and now I can see and be seen (especially from behind on country roads). I no longer hear the engine revs decrease as the dynamo works hard when I turn on the headlights.

Stephen