Planning on taking the 37 Buick on a 3000 mile trip in a couple weeks and was concerned about the lights, especially on wet blacktop roads. I put new Wagner Halogen sealed beams in and checked connections and grounds and lights were fairly bright but still yellow. I checked the head light switch and dimmer switch and both showed a few ohms resistance so I disassembled and cleaned the contacts and lubed with the proper grease. Cleaned the grounds and dabbed a high pigment aluminum paint spot so no rust would form and used the electrical grease in all connectors so water can't infiltrate and then tried again. Better but not quite 100% so I then Taped off the existing harness and made up a new lights only one using 14g wiring and hooked everything up directly to the internal regulator alternator. The circuit now goes from the battery post on the alternator directly to the light switch, through the dimmer switch, and then to the lights. The old set up goes Alt to Amp to Battery to Main Feed wire to Light switch to Dimmer switch to lights. The head lights and tail/brake lights each have a ground wire directly back to the alternator case. Since an alternator doesn't make electricity but just recieves a signal and amplifies it to the demand I can see no problem but will test it daily for the next 10 days. Last night I drove down the highway next to some very new cars and the Buick made THEIR lights appear yellow.
what a bright idea.... Evan, I did a similar thing on a previous vehicle. I added a relay fed directly thru an auto-reset circuit breaker from the battery, and used the existing headlamp wiring to energize the relay. I also used Hella (non D O T) headlamps with 6-volt bulbs. Bright, clean, focused. good luck on your 3 thousand mile journey!
Interesting idea, Evan. That does seem like a more direct route to the lights. Are you heading through east Kansas on your trip?
Bright lights I also did a similar setup but used two Bosch plug-in relays that were operated from the hi / low switch. Fed the relays with ten ga wire direct from the battery through a fusible wire. This has negligible voltage drop to the headlights. The nice thing is bright headlights. Bosch relays are available at most parts stores. I have the relays with the plug in bases and 30 amp rating.
