[Karl]

Originally Posted by Adam/Mill Valley CA

In the 14 years I've owned my '36 pickup,I had never driven it at night, due to the dim headlights; it has the original headlamps, 6V positive ground, three brush generator.This was a particular problem in winter since it gets dark so early which would limit travel destination. , I finally decided to do something about it. Checking the grounds did not help, clearly the problem was the voltage drop in the switch at the bottom of the steering column. There was an excellent post from about 2015 by JSeery (also with input from supereal) about setting up high and low beam relays on a compact board, including a wiring diagram. This made it an easy one day project, and the light output was dramatically improved. I used heavy duty 6 volt Cole Hersee solenoids (from dbelectrical.com,#24039), and original type wiring/connectors from Brillman Company. To get an even better light, I used high output LED bulbs from classicautobulbs.com (2330 P15-d-30), these have the APF (American Prefocus) base like the original bulb, draw only 1.14 amps on high beam, 1000 lumens light output, and a decent beam pattern with the original lenses. I would say the light output now is comparable to my '65 Mustang with halogen sealed beam headlights-not spectacular but reasonably good-enough for SF Bay Area traffic, which is very heavy. Many thanks to JSeery and supereal, also petehoovie who posted the link for the LED bulb source.
Adam

My experience with LEDs has not been as good. I suspect you are lucky and have found an LED bulb that sits at or close to the focal point of the reflector and hence you get a close to correct beam pattern. I've tried several LED bulbs , including the same source as you in my 34 and could never get an acceptable beam pattern when tested on a calibrated machine. I would have sworn that there was more light but proper testing revealed it was unfocused light and was going everywhere but on the road where it should be -Karl