Switching from driving on the right to driving on the left

Hello Experts :-)

I have moved from a country with right-hand-side-of-the-road-driving to one with left-hand-side-of-the-road-driving and I am having problems finding headlamps that dip down to the left as I drive. My car is a 1984 Mercedes Benz 240D with Chassis No. WDB 1231231A124698.

I still have my Sylvania Halogen right-hand sealed beam headlights with markings A04 and 2D1 and I can't drive at night. It seems that my car may be banned unless I get the right lamps.

In the past few months I have sent emails to about 50 possible auto sales outlets and 100 were sent to car breakers in Ireland - no luck!

TIA

Reply to
Seum
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I had no trouble sourcing lenses with my W123 when I moved it from Germany to the UK, but it was many years ago.

How about official masking tape in meantime?

Have you asked any Mercedes garage?

DAS

Reply to
DAS

Very interesting DAS. How on earth could you drive on the left and dip your lights to the right without blinding the traffic coming towards you, or did you drive only by day? Daylight driving is what I have been doing for the past 6 months.

This is not allowed here in Ireland but the people here do it regularly when they visit the European continent.

Have I? I had emails sent out to 100 car breakers here and I sent about

50 others to Germany, UK, and USA. A few came close but not close enough.

Thanks for your interest :-)

Seu(mas) :-)

Reply to
Seum

Seumas

Special permitted lens masks were (and are still, as far as I know) readily available in the UK, at least in motoring organisation shops, especially at the border such as the Channel Tunnel entrance. As you know, directional dipping was achieved by the lens.

More recent lenses do not lend themselves to such treatment, AFAIK, so it's useless when I take my newer RHD vehicle to the Continent.

I brought my LHD W123 from Germany to the UK. I drove it legally in the UK with a mask, until one day I smashed one glass, which needed to be replaced, so I replaced both lenses with RHD-compliant ones (even though the steering wheel was still on the left...).

(Slightly OT: Amusingly, when I sold the car 2 years later (still in UK) the buyer complained about the UK-compliant lenses...:-) He was a Portuguese who was planning to take the car to Portugal...)

I am also reminded of a later incident (in 1986) with a W124. I had taken delivery of a UK-spec car in Germany and managed to have an accident in Germany (snow and ice are my excuses), which needed new headlight lenses. I had expected LHD lenses as an interim measure, until I brought the car to the UK but, in the 48 h Merc Hamburg needed to fix the car completely (severe body damage at the front) they also supplied the correct RHD lenses.

When I mentioned Merc garages, I meant a main dealership. They should be able to source parts even for much older cars.

DAS

Reply to
DAS

Just buy them used on ebay... plentiful in UK.

Reply to
Tiger

Hello Tiger,

It's not as easy as you think. I have been sending emails asking about those headlamps for many months. One garage sent out my email to 100 car breakers in Ireland and had no response. I have sent at least 50 more to UK and Germany with little success. For some weird reason the UK does not bother with sealed beam lamps like the US Sylvania ones. It makes me wish to return to USA again.

Reply to
Seum

You are looking at the wrong type.

In UK and auro, they have euro light units... which is one solid glass instead of two round lights.

Otherwise, you need to look at Cibie 7" round headlight... NOT SEALED... but rather use H4 bulbs.

Tiger wrote:

Hello Tiger,

It's not as easy as you think. I have been sending emails asking about those headlamps for many months. One garage sent out my email to 100 car breakers in Ireland and had no response. I have sent at least 50 more to UK and Germany with little success. For some weird reason the UK does not bother with sealed beam lamps like the US Sylvania ones. It makes me wish to return to USA again.

Reply to
Tiger

They're the ones I like best.

I have found an outfit that seems to be Valeo related.

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From them I found:
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there is no mention of headlamps anywhere that I could see. It is very poorly organized. I also found a Cibie outfit:
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sent them 3 emails about Cibie 082441 +H4s over the past month and had no reply. I have found a different address (from a web page) for them and I have sent another message there. One contact I have is thinking about approaching the company for me. So the struggle goes on.

Thanks again Tiger for your attention. :-)

Reply to
Seum

Maybe I'm missing something, but since they are the old style sealed beams, can't they just be adjusted via the normal adjusting screws that align the headlights? Or is there not enough range in the screws?

Reply to
trader4

....nor has Seum said if he tried, say, Mercedes-Benz UK (unless I missed something).

DAS

Reply to
DAS

Those lights can be adjusted. To align lights correctly, you have to place the car on a flat surface a certain distance from a wall that carries certain markings. You then adjust the lights until the beams hit the right spots on the wall.

Reply to
Seum

Now I'm even more confused. Since they can be adjusted, then why can't you just adjust them?

Reply to
trader4

The point is that you CAN adjust them, simply by turning some screws. My BIIIG problem is finding the right kind of lights, and the adjustment is kid stuff.

Reply to
Seum

You said in the first post you had the lights:

"I still have my Sylvania Halogen right-hand sealed beam headlights with markings A04 and 2D1 and I can't drive at night. It seems that my car may be banned unless I get the right lamps. "

Which raised my question that I would think with the adjusting screws you could make them point in the correct direction provided there is enough adjustment range on the screws, no? When I've worked on the US lights that used sealed beams, seemed the screws would move them around a lot in any direction.

Reply to
trader4

At some stage Seum will have to decide whether 'becoming legal' is more important than having "the right kind of lights", if all else fails. I would have thought standard headlamps for RHD W123s are fairly readily available via any Merc main dealer in Ireland and Britain. Just ring the ruddy parts department.

DAS

Reply to
DAS

Sealed beam raised an issue... If I recalled correctly, US sealed beam are basically flat headlight... they don't have the typical angle up side light built in Euro headlamps... All US headlights were flat. So I don't see any issue with driving on the 'wrong' side of the road with flat headlamp...

If anything needs to be done... reaim the headlight.

If he somehow got the angle up headlamp, then he must have the euro headlight... but there is no euro headlight with round headlights... all euro headlights are one big glass.

Reply to
Tiger

Sounds like we're thinking along the same lines. It would seem to me that there is enough adjustment in the sealed beam screws to point them wherever you want.

Reply to
trader4

The Sylvania sealed beam headlamps that I still have are NOT flat in front. I used my measuring tape today and found that the radius of curvature of the front of the headlamp is about 6" - 7" - not flat.

See here:

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This one seems to be a sealed unit and I'm going for it.

Now, another no no here - about the two little lights at the front outer corners of the car. There seems to be one bulb in front and another one just around the corner. The law says no.

Here is a note that a local expert sent me:

"You will need to drill the rear of the plastic housing assembly to clear the sidelight socket; US cars have the sidelight function built into the front indicators. Amber front sidelights like this are legal in the USA, but not in the UK, so you'll need to snip the wire feeding the sidelight filament of the present side/indicator bulb and route it to one of the new headlamp optic's two sidelight terminals, the other of which gets earthed. Fit the new lamps with one T4W sidelight bulb and one H4 dip/main globe (I recommend Philips Xtreme Power) and after the lamps have been aimed you'll be all set. "

Anyone understand that?

Reply to
Seum

The Sylvania sealed beam headlamps that I still have are NOT flat in front. I used my measuring tape today and found that the radius of curvature of the front of the headlamp is about 6" - 7" - not flat.

See here:

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This one seems to be a sealed unit and I'm going for it.

Now, another no no here - about the two little lights at the front outer corners of the car. There seems to be one bulb in front and another one just around the corner. The law says no.

Here is a note that a local expert sent me:

"You will need to drill the rear of the plastic housing assembly to clear the sidelight socket; US cars have the sidelight function built into the front indicators. Amber front sidelights like this are legal in the USA, but not in the UK, so you'll need to snip the wire feeding the sidelight filament of the present side/indicator bulb and route it to one of the new headlamp optic's two sidelight terminals, the other of which gets earthed. Fit the new lamps with one T4W sidelight bulb and one H4 dip/main globe (I recommend Philips Xtreme Power) and after the lamps have been aimed you'll be all set. "

Anyone understand that?

Reply to
Tiger

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Call up your local MB breaker yard... they should have some over there for cheap. Glass replacement are easy to get.

Reply to
Tiger

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