How do I make my 68's lights brighter? They seem dim to me. I've cleaned all the socketsandbulb contacts. New voltage regulator needed?

 

how old are the lights themselves?

 

Most classic mustangs had dim lights due to the way they were wired. I remember reading somewhere how to resolve it.. unfortunately I forget where I read it. Google 'dim headlights' or that nature. When I start putting our car back together I'm going to also be replacing all the bulbs with LED replacements. Just did this in my fathers AMC and all the lights (dash, blinkers, turn signals, tail light, dome, etc) are MUCH brighter.

 

there is a way... http://midnightdsigns.com/james/headlights.htm

JamesW's page.

its pretty easy to do.

 

if its not the bulbs themself wiring would be next you can get a relay kit from places like summit and wire it in and they will get full votage. stock wires are not great on older cars

 

The housings and sockets appear to be original. Bulbs are new.

 

I changed my stock voltage regulator to a electronic one. The headlights seem brighter and they don't flicker like they used to.

 

The relay mod works very well and is real easy to do

where did you find the electronic voltage regulator ?

 

the problem with those mustangs is that the power the headlights need goes through a million connectors and the lightswitch itself.
If the connections are 40 years old->dim headlights
every modern car uses relays for that ( a low power circuit for switching the high power circuit for the headlights).
This way the headlights get 12V+ directly from a relay hooked op to the battery.

So I agree with all the above: check on the JamesW's page http://midnightdsigns.com/james/headlights.htm

 

Reenmachine.com has a conversion kit that is pretty cool. It switches your old style halogen bulbs over to H4s. You can also just get the wiring harness which can be used with old style halogens and basically bypasses the factory headlight harness. It is basically the same thing posted above but a manufacturered version with the option of much brighter bulbs. If you want to use H4 bulbs, you have to modify the bulb holding cap thing. The H4 bulbs have a larger back end that will not fit.