Defender headlights

I use 100% brighter Ring xenon max bulbs way better than standard h4

Prompted by an article in the latest LRO magazine I am tempted to put Wipac Crystal headlights on my 300tdi 90. I presently have Wipac Quadoptics with H4 bulbs

Anyone any opinions or advice

Julian

I use 100% brighter Ring xenon max bulbs way better than standard h4

Prompted by an article in the latest LRO magazine I am tempted to put Wipac Crystal headlights on my 300tdi 90. I presently have Wipac Quadoptics with H4 bulbs

Anyone any opinions or advice

Julian

I appreciate that xenons are much brighter but understand more electrics are necessary and don't want to get involved in that

Julian

If there is nothing wrong with the Quadoptics, stay with them. If the reflector is begining to corrode at the bottom, then the change is perhaps due. The "Crystal" lamps are good. At least equal to the Quadoptics in brigtness, but the beam pattern is subtly different with it all formed buy the reflector, not the lens.

I did that change myself a couple of years back, with standard bulbs. I've not been disapointed at all. They are good lamps, and look good too. The only "in service" downside, is in fog or falling snow, even on dipped beam, there is a lot of light that goes almost straight up, forming a light curtain right where you want to look through.

My works car (a Mazda 6) suffers the same as well sadly.

"Standard" 65/55W H4 bulbs are more than good enough for the Crystal lamps.

More powerful H4 bulbs will fit, but may not have the 'E' mark, so could be a MOT fail too (Unless you have a 24V FFR vehicle!) Plus, you will need to uprate the wiring to the lamps to make the best benefit of them with 12V electrics. 150/65W H4 lamps are available, but take care if any part of the headlamp fitting is plastic (even the back bowl, dont ask!) The vast majority of that extra power ends up as heat!

Just feeding standard bulbs, via dedicated high current (low volt drop) feeds and relays etc, make a noticable improvement, and wont melt your dip switch either! I added relays after the main/dip switch failed and had to be replaced. It wont fail that way again.

My MOT guy says, that even a 6V moggie minor pin's his light meter on the end stop, so they can't tell what power the bulb is if they can't read it on the forward facing mounting ring. Crystal lamps make that easy, if they choose to look!... He also says that most HID conversions fail due to the wrong dip beam pattern. There are also Radio Interference issues with some HID kits too.

Avoid the "Ice Blue" H4 lamps. As well as the glass tint, they run the filament a lot hotter, and that reduces the life considerably. Plus, the stupid cost of them, for what benefit?

I recently toyed with the idea, of fitting a H1 HID bulb, in a rotating amber beacon! Thankfully, the beer ran out, and the source of H1 HID motorcycle kits dried up. The 100W H1 bulb in there at the moment, is more than bright enough anyway! Impressive on a dark foggy night! :-)

Just my ramblings on the matter. Others may vary.

Cheers All.

DaveB

Prompted by an article in the latest LRO magazine I am tempted to put Wipac Crystal headlights on my 300tdi 90. I presently have Wipac Quadoptics with H4 bulbs

Anyone any opinions or advice

Julian

One of my Quadoptics was cracked & needed changing before a recent MOT. I replaced them both with Wipac Crystal units from Paddocks (arrived quickly; satisfied customer, no other connection). They were a direct replacement, no problems. They came with bulbs but I was using Osram Nightbreaker bulbs so transferred those. (The Nightbreakers need no wiring change and definitely seem brighter). The Crystals look a bit more 'bling' - it's wasted on my 'fender, but the light pattern is good. They are polycarbonate, not glass - I don't know if this will turn out good or bad in the long term.

Joskin

I use 100% brighter Ring xenon max bulbs way better than standard h4

Prompted by an article in the latest LRO magazine I am tempted to put Wipac Crystal headlights on my 300tdi 90. I presently have Wipac Quadoptics with H4 bulbs

Anyone any opinions or advice

Julian

I appreciate that xenons are much brighter but understand more electrics are necessary and don't want to get involved in that

Julian

No wiring changes necessary the bulbs are still 55/60W just a bright white light way better, use them in my bike too

Jon

People Hi,

Another very effective way to improve the performance of the front lights on all older type Landies is to provide direct electric feed from the battery or the alternator.

Bypassing the factory wiring and switches makes the bulbs operate with up to

13.8 Volts and not less than 12.0 Volts as it usually happens with the LR designed and fitted system.

A drop of 1% in voltage usually results in a drop of around 3.5% in light output on incadescent bulbs so dropping the voltage from 12 V to 11.5 Volts will result in around 14.6% drop in the lighting efficiency of the bulbs of our cars. But increasing the voltage from 12 Volts to 13.8 (this is usually the voltage generated by the alternator) will bring an increase of light output of around 52.5%.

What you will need is a relay taking the on/off information from the factory loom and providing electric feed directly from the alternator or battery.

Alternatively there is a "plug and play" wiring which does not require and cuts or modification on the factory loom. You just remove the factory plugs from the bulbs, fit one factory plug to the male plug of the "plug and play" loom, fit the new female plugs of the "plug and play" loom to the bulbs, connect the black and red wires of the "p&p" loom to the alternator or battery and off you go with much brighter lights on your car.

You can see a photo of the "plug & play" loom here:

A is the male plug which connects to one of the female plugs of the factory loom that originaly is fitted to the bulb on the light cluster. B is for the electric feed and ground wires to be connected to the battery or alternator C and D are the new female plugs of the "p&p" loom that are used on the bulbs H is the "p&p" loom electronic unit and relay I is the fuse box of the "p&p" loom J is the small bag with the tie-raps and connectors for the connection of wires B to the alternator or battery E, G and F are the bulbs and light clusters we use here in Greece when we upgrade the lights on Defender vehicles.

Take care Pantelis Giamarellos LAND ROVER CLUB OF GREECE

Does that mean that the Defender has a gas proof Battery container/box?????

Always thought Hydrogen was lighter than air and I can't see my battery box keeping 1 atom of H inside the box , let alone enough to cause an explosion. Also, modern batteries are sealed with a specific vent tube for any gases produced, which, on my 2010MY Defender, is vented outside the box.

No, it's as leaky as the rest of a Defender! ;-) Just in my feeble mind, it's "less than good" to have anything that naturally Sparks (relays, contactors) near anything that can in normal use can produce flammable gas! H2 and O in just the right proportions for a "good pop" too.

I've seen what can happen in other circumstances when it happens...

Messy, to say the least...

Regards.

DaveB.