Does anyone have experience with the composite H4 headlights Hella offers as a replacement for the older square sealed beams found on the 1980-85 240s?


I'm curious to know if the light they produce is significantly better than a quality modern halogen sealed beam? Of course they say they are better, they are trying to sell headlights.


A high end halogen sealed beam runs $20-25, the Hellas are $50-60.




I do a lot of driving in the dark on 2 lane highways this time of year (I arrive at work at dawn, and head home at dusk) so better lights are always welcome. I'm particularly interested in the performance of the low beams, which currently leave something to be desired. The high beams are pretty good, but that always seems to be how these things work.


I don't mind the extra money if they are noticeably better, but I don't need to buy a light for the name.

 

if you're talking about what I think you are, the advantage of those Hella's is you can replace the H4 capsule, instead of the entire (not-really) sealed beam.

i've never owned a car that used rectangular sealed beams, went straight from round sealed to modern capsule based lights. halogen sealed beam replacement lights aren't actually sealed, they have a capsule inside them, but that isn't seperately replacable, so you need the whole $25 headlight each time, instead of a $6-7 H4 capsule.

are you talking about these?
My Hella Lights :: 4

those comparisions are, I believe, against conventional NON-halogen lamps... I also note those are ECE and not DOT, so they aren't legal in the USA (but they probably have a better low beam pattern, the DOT specification/requirements are stupid).

 

Yeah, that looks like the lights I'm talking about. I get the capsule part, I've had cars with the modern lens housing / capsule type light and that is one attraction although headlight replacement is infrequent enough to make any savings take years to cover the cost of the upgrade.


I'm mostly wondering about the lens compared to what you get if you buy a whole replacement light. If they really do have a more efficient pattern it is worth spending the money to me. If they are basically the same as the complete replacement light I can get at any auto parts store then it's not.


I was hoping maybe someone here actually had experience with them or similar. I've read that our (US) headlight rules are pretty bad compared to Europe, which is what I think you are getting at with ECE vs DOT.

 

yeah. ECE (european) lamps have a better defined sharper cutoff, with less light above the line and more evenly distributed light below the line. DOT has a stupid rule about 10% or something going up high to light overhead road signs.

I've had ECE lights on cars in the past and never had a bit of trouble with them in California, but if some LEO has a bee up his butt and wants to find something to bust you on, they could pull that. I kinda doubt it. It would just be a fixit ticket, anyways (and play dumb, the car came with them, right?)

 

I was able to find some videos from people who have done similar swaps. Looks like a pretty significant improvement.


Yeah, I'm not to worried about the legal issues, I had a look at the California laws on headlights and while they are pretty specific in areas there is nothing that the Euro lights don't meet and they are not specifically mentioned. Everything is mounting height, glare, distance you can see etc all of which would only get better. If CHP is checking out your headlights you've probably got bigger issues anyway since you must have done something to **** him off.


I was amused with the opening line in the regulations: Headlights are required to be on during periods of darkness...


Thanks

 

I used these on a Dodge Omni. They worked well. I was living in New Hampshire at the time and having good light on backroads at night was important. I also added Hella 500 fog lights. This enabled me to see the deer's eyes reflect back at me when they were off on the side of the road.

I don't remember the exact improvement, but it was better and seemed to be worth the money. I also never had a problem with inspections, but I kept the sealed beams, just in case. You may want to add fog lights too. They help fill in the area in front of the car and out to the side.

 

re: foglamps, I put a set of Hella MicroDE fogs under my bumpers and put yellowstar bulbs in them, and they work GREAT. tiny little projector lamps, excellent proper foglamp pattern (wide, sharp cutoff). I've had a pair of them on my motorcycle for close to 80k miles in all kinds of weather, so i know they hold up well.



oh, I wired them to the factory foglamp wiring which was in my non-fog equippted 740T... Had to replace the fog switch (car came with rear fog but the 2-way fog switch just drops in), and add the fog relay (again drops in, no additional wiring needed)

obviously, an older 240 probably won't have this wiring....

 

Yeah, I've had fog lights before, I really liked them so they are also on the list. I'm thinking since the headlights are fairly simple I'll probably start there and do it in stages. Added things up and it is around $350-400 for both sets of lights and a decent fog light kit. Still that is cheap compared to whacking a deer at 60mph.

 

Well I did it, got them from IPD yesterday and put them in today. I am really impressed with how easy replacing a headlight is on these cars. Two twist locks and 4 screws, took about 10 minutes to do both. I've done it on other cars and it can be a real chore.


Kind of interesting they come with a dual filament H4 bulb, so they do low and high beam, plus I'll still have my separate high beams (quad lights). The old bulbs didn't do that, strictly low beam or high beam.



Sunday night they will be getting a good test run on some dark sections of highway, so I'll have a good chance to see how much of an improvement they are.

 

if you're going to have 4 highbeams, you definitely should wire up headlight relays, 4 * 60W will overload the stock wiring and switches.

 

Stock 240s of those years has 4 high beams. no need to wire anything.

 

I thought about that, but the difference between 2 @ 55W + 2 @ 60W vs 4 @ 60W doesn't seem like much to worry about. All 4 lights stayed on before, it just didn't seem like the low beams changed when switched to highbeam.



TIPSP are you saying the old low beam lights should have kicked up to high beam as well? They didn't seem to but I only checked after replacing one bulb, I suppose the remaining bulb could have been bad, or the wrong one.

 

the difference is, 2x55 + 2x60 only has 120 watts on the high beam circuit.

4 x 60 has 240 watts on the high beam circuit.

 

Mine had all four on. It was nice.

 

I do appreciate the concern, but further checking does look like this is appropriate for the car. The old bulbs were an H4656 single filament bulb that the auto parts stores assume is the replacement (I checked several online and they all recommend the H4656 for the outer bulb). Oddly I can't find any Volvo source for the correct OEM replacement bulb number.



I checked the Bentley and Haynes manual wiring diagrams. The Bentley diagrams confuse me, but Haynes does clearly show a dual circuit bulb in the low beam position.


I also found some references at Brick board that support the stock 4 high beams on Volvos.


There is also a how to I found through Brick Board taking advantage of this feature to convert the middle set of high beams into higher output driving lights by adding an additional relay (so you would have 3 settings, low beam / high beam on the outside and ultra high beam in the center).


VClassics Interactive - Archive


It does appear that this is an oddity of 4 headlight Volvos as most cars with 4 headlights seem to be wired with a simple low beams outside, high beams inside. I've never owned a car with 4 headlights before, but always thought that was how they worked.

 

and I just checked the volvo greenbook for 1985 (which i didn't think I had).

shows outer bulbs as dual filament, inner ones as single. in 'high beam' mode, all 4 are on high beam. in low beam mode, just the outer ones are low beams.

this is a USA configuration. world market just got single dual-beam bulbs, with an H4 style bulb..

found a 1985 owners manual here, 1985 Volvo DL, GL and Turbo but it doesn't say what PN the front bulbs are. its quite possible both sets were dual beam, and the low/dipped beam of the inner set is not connected.

most cars with quad lights, BOTH are on as high beams, but only the outer set as low beams.

 

Thanks


Well just finished driving 60 miles of dark, winding, 4 lane highway in a light rain with enough oncoming traffic to prevent most use of the high beams.


I'm giving the lights a thumbs up. A quite noticeable improvement and well worth the money to me.

 

Hello, Pierce I love the fog lights that you added would you please be able to post a link for the specific Hella MicroDE I should use? I have the two-way switch and the relay to drop already. Thank you for your time

 

Hella Micro DE Fog Lamp Kits and Single Lamps | Rally Lights

the kit comes with a harness and cheap switch, so you probably just want to get the two singles, unless you find the kit cheaper...

here's mounted under my bumper when I was installing them...



note they are pointing up more than a little... won't do! So, I dremeled out a hole in the skirt behind them, so the back of the lamp would nest up into it. alternately, you could put them on a spacer block to lower the front, if so, I'd move them a bit up/forward to clear parking stops.

originally, I was going to cut a elliptical hole in the skirt and mount them half behind the skirt, so only the lens stuck out. this would have required fabricating a bracket behind the bumper, above the skirt, to support them, and the lens has to be in FRONT of the skirt, or the sides will get cut off (very wide low beam), so I copped out.

 

AT5 240GL--

I had a job for FedEx for a while, and I got up at 3 am and headed in to work until the sun came out later that day. In so doing, I did a lot of driving up and down back roads that deer loved to cross. I considered headlight upgrades--and still would not mind that--but I ended up getting some Hella 4000 driving lights. Well, to be fair, I was still considering ideas when these were given to me. These lights are super incredible, but strictly speaking, aren't quite legal to use on road, but in most of my driving on these roads at these hours, I seldom ran into another car, let alone a cop.

I wired 'em up with the power coming directly off the main power rail and a relay, and linked them to my high beams, so that if I did run into a car, i could cut them off quickly with my high beams. I made up a wiring diagram about that somewhere...

They're great for not hitting deer. But, not so effective in the fog...

Here's a picture of my setup:


Just some thoughts.