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MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG TD TF 1500 - LED Headlamp

I'm itching to try the latest headlamps from Truck-lite. 7 inch round LEDs with 1400 lumen or so... much brighter than stock yet they should fit without difficulty and have much less of a draw... only 3.6 amps on high beam!
Has anybody tried these yet?
http://www.truck-lite.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=92025&langId=-1
Geoffrey M Baker

There has been a replacement landing light for light aircraft for some time. At my last IA renewal the manufacture's rep entertained us by tossing one that was impossible to catch, crashing nosily to the floor. He then attached it to a power supply and demonstrated that it was undamaged. The point being that besides the low draw and long life it was unlikely to be damaged by vibration and there was no reason not to leave it on all the time as an anti collision device.
JE Carroll

First I've seen them, but would be very interested on practical results on one of our cars. Please keep us posted if you try them. PJ

Paul S Jennings

For nearly $200 apiece I would want them to be able to make me a gin and tonic and fetch me my slippers.
David Littlefield

Well, some think nothing of plonking down $5000 for speed, with superchargers and specialized gears and differentials; some think nothing of spending $3000 on wire wheels because they like the look; personally, I think $400 on a safety feature isn't a bad deal at all. They're a little pricier than HID headlamps, but much longer lasting and less of a drain on an antiquated electrical system!
Geoffrey M Baker

I did not see a price...where should I be looking? Thanks. Regards, Tom
tm peterson

I have a set on my desk, that haven't been installed yet. I have been working with marketing to prepare a tech session at GOF 95 about them... more to come.

Blair
Blair Weiss

I set up HID headlamps on our '50 a couple of years ago pretty cheap- under a hundred bucks for the works.

A pair of HID headlamps are about $30 off ebay; each bulb is 3000+ Lumens; only draw about 3 amps each. They're mounted in a pair of Autopal 7" H4 conversion headlamps. The SLIM ballasts are hidden inside the headlamp bucket. As a bonus, my buddy was overjoyed to take the very high output H4s that came with them.

Only one drawback, there's way too much light! The lights are cocked a bit to the right. The left bulb illuminates the road straight ahead and the right beam gives great coverage to keep a look out for deer, seriously.

I've converted quite a few of our cars to HID.
JRN JIM

I set up a HID system on my motorcycle. There are lots of variables... Cheaper ones were not bixenon IE the high beam was xenon but low beam was halogen... When I installed mine a bixenon system was about $100 and two headlamps would be double that... But I agree HIDs are too bright and mostly the wrong color... Lastly they create voltages upwards of 20000... Which can cause interesting problems with grounding and interference issues.
Geoffrey M Baker

Interesting post. I installed a set of Halogen headlights on the 72 mgb and they are so bright I don't know the advantage of spending $400.00 for a set of the LEDs. They put out twice the light as the original bulbs and adjusted properly they reach out quite a ways down the road. After reading a couple articles on the new LED headlights and knowing what's in the MGB, I really see no reason to spend 400 bucks for the LEDs. If you think about it, why all of a sudden the light bulbs that have been in these cars for 60 years, now draw too much power to run without burning up wiring or blowing fuses and we must change to a bulb that has less draw? The problem is not in the bulbs, it's in faulty wiring and connections.

Here's what's in the B and probably will go in the TF, Lucas Halogen. PJ



Paul S Jennings

Just to be a buzzkill... all of those HID conversions are "Illegal"... why? Your reflectors are meant to focus the light coming from a H4 lamp. (In the case of the 7" Hh4 conversion reflectors). By taking a D1 or D2 and gluing a H4 base onto it, doesn't necessarily place the light in the focal point of the reflector. Top that off with, when designing both (HID and tungsten / Halogen) reflectors, they also take into consideration the shape of the light spot. The light coming off a tungsten/halogen coil is a cylinder, while the light coming out of the HID is more of a crescent shape. Now the HID light source is usually used for the low beam and there is a second tungsten/halogen light source for the high beam. Since two object cannot occupy the same space at the same time, the second tungsten / halogen high beam filament is even more offset from the ideal focal position, which makes it even less efficient.

That being said, we have tested some HID conversions (Chinese of course) to benchmark how bad they are. There are some kits on the market that are quite good and it ranges within the supplier, for instance one supplier had very good light output and shape in on version of their product (9007 style), while they had poor output and shape in another style.. (H13)..

More on the halogen cycle...

Both HID and Tungsten lamps use a fill gas in the capsule. That gas can be any noble gas (last column on the periodic table) but xenon and krypton are preferred... Radon might work, but nobody wants to try it... With tungsten lamps, they also introduce a halogen (second column from the right on the periodic table) to capture the evaporating tungsten from the coil and bring it back away from the glass envelope. If the halogen wasn't present, the coil would just evaporate and plate the inner bulb wall with tungsten and it would become dark and light wouldn't escape.

Blair

Blair Weiss

Paul, you are right. But there are other factors. 1) The electrical system in an older car (and there's a world of difference between your 72 MGB and my 51 positive ground TD) is made using older technologies and older materials... cloth wiring vs high temperature plastics, mechanical relays over electronics. As these older systems age, they degrade. So the solution to iffy wiring is either totally rewiring (at high cost and long labor times) or simpler upgrades that work better with older lower power systems. Such as LED's...
2) As time passes, light output has increased on vehicles. Look at a modern vehicle. A modern Honda CRV, for instance, devotes a much larger square area to lights and reflectors, and uses more powerful bulbs. I noticed this sitting behind one; their turn signal/running lamp takes up about five times the square area of my MGTD's little glass rectangle... and behind those large, mirror-finish reflectors are high power bulbs. So the problem becomes, HOW TO BE SEEN! If you want to survive on a modern road, you have to deal with drivers who expect bright lights and highly visible signals and whose brains won't process the small, dim flash of my turn signal... we've conditioned ourselves to seeing much brighter lights, and if we don't see them, we don't react. So how to put brighter lights in our ageing electrical system? Well, LED's seem like a heaven-sent opportunity to improve our safety...
There isn't much of an argument to put an LED headlamp in a modern vehicle; you can get brighter ones (HIDS); and who cares if it uses less draw?
But on a positive ground 51 TD with a lot of still original, fraying wire... an LED headlamp lets you compete with modern vehicles AND decrease the dangers of my antiquated electrical system and the famous LUCAS black smoke...
Just my two cents.
I'll wait till the LEDs drop another $100 before I take the plunge...
Geoffrey M Baker

Blair, that's quite true, every HID system I ever looked at had some fine print about not being street legal... I believe the LED headlamps are DOT approved.
Geoffrey M Baker

Geoff,
Yes, the first line in the truck-lite writeup... MVSS108 is the law about lighting in automobiles (in the US). One thing you might want to be aware of before buying them is to ask if they are polarity sensitive... for $400, they better have a protection diode.

Blair
Blair Weiss

Blair, that's the other thing I'm waiting for before installing LED lamps... I need to switch to negative ground. It just isn't worth the effort to try to isolate this kind of device, and better and safer to simply change over. It's on my list of to-do for 2015. 2014 is still dealing with getting the TD back on the road!
Geoffrey M Baker

My TF has all new wiring. It's the repo with the fabric outer sleeve, but the wires are plastic coated and look just like the wires on my pickup for size. Other than switches, a relay is going behind the master cylinder for the brake switch, as I haven't found a new switch as good as the originals, plus possible electronic voltage regulator conversion. Don't know why the headlights would draw too much juice, but if they do, then they'll get a relay in the system if it can be done without cutting the new harness. I have to make any mods without cutting the new harness, if it has to be cut then the system will remain as original. PJ
Paul S Jennings

This thread was discussed between 14/02/2014 and 15/02/2014

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