Pagoda SL Group
W113 Pagoda SL Group => Research & Development => Topic started by: 114015 on January 25, 2019, 19:17:46
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Dear @ll,
When watching the pics of Stirling Moss' RHD car
and the one in this J Wax add in another thread here... ;)
https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=28660.0
the question came up to me again about the difference of US headlights (sealed beam) versus (so-called) 'European' headlights. ???
But is this the complete truth?
Which country - other than the US - received from the factory US/sealed-beam headlights on their Pagodas?
Canada perhaps? I've seen both in CA, SLs with US- and non-US headlight units. :o
https://www.sl113.org/wiki/Electrical/USLamp
My guess is just this:
All US-delivery SLs got sealed-beam unit headlights (the common AC, AN, AJ types) and all other cars had 'rest-of-the-world' headlights (the ones we call here 'European' headlights...)
... with the only difference RHD versus LHD headlights.
Please,
is this (my) assumption correct
or were there any countries in the World - other than the US - receiving Pagoda-SLs upon order but with US headlights?
;) :D
Just curious....
Achim
(switched from US-AC headlites to 'Europeans' since his car is a Euro delivery car)
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Canada and the USA share very similar requirements for lighting and safety equipment.
There are differences though....... Euro head lights were always legal here but not in the US. You were supposed to have your car changed to US specs to be DOT compliant. When I bought my car in North Carolina in 1993, it still had Euro head lights and metric gauges so some slipped through. Oddly enough, sealed beams are not legal in Europe.
About 20 years ago Canadian built cars had DRL systems but they hadn't been introduced in most of the US and I kept getting pulled over for having my lights on while driving to Florida. It took some explaining that I couldn't shut them off and I had to prove it on one occasion to avoid a ticket.
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The reason you find Euro (non-sealed beam) headlights in the U.S. is that on imported vehicles over 25 years old, the DMV rules and regulations are rarely enforced. It varies somewhat from State to State, I guess, but here in Ohio, they are not that picky. I own several vehicles that came here through non-OEM import channels and they have Euro specs, e.g. headlights, no running lights, km/h speedometers etc. and they all have a current Ohio title.
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Same here in Virginia, euro headlamps are ok now, being the SL is running antique plates. My SL is European specs for German market. Car was shipped to US in late 80’s and put into Virginia registration, sealbeam lamps were required, so the conversion firm the shipper the car over from Germany, put sealbeam bulbs in the euro headlamp
assembly, (meaning the European glass lens were still being used along with the housings. All I had to do was disconnect wiring of sealbeams, takeout the custom holding assemblies, the euro mirrors were intact, and replace sealbeam with Holagen bulbs and readjust beams. The import company were real wizards at the conversion.
Bob
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so the conversion firm the shipper the car over from Germany, put sealbeam bulbs in the euro headlamp
assembly, (meaning the European glass lens were still being used along with the housings. All I had to do was disconnect wiring of sealbeams, takeout the custom holding assemblies, the euro mirrors were intact, and replace sealbeam with Holagen bulbs and readjust beams. The import company were real wizards at the conversion.
Bob
How did they do that? On a sealed beam, glass, reflector and bulb are all one unit, thus the name "sealed beam"
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Hi,
sealed beam headlights (asymetric) were already introduced in April 1966 for RHD 230SL so Engelen says: #15952.
The ads for the new 250SL in the US showed already sealed beam headlights.
The DOT (Department of Transportation) in the US was founded in 1967, started 1.7.1967 with a lot of safety requirements, so MB reacted already with new features same month.
...WRe
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Don't want to be a smart aleck, but:
DOT was established by an act of Congress on October 15, 1966, and began operation on April 1, 1967.
If DB introduced sealed beam headlights on RHDs 230, for what market was that? 3 large markets have RHD: U.K. Australia and Japan.
So, was there another sealed beam requirement before the U.S.?
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South Africa was the other big market for RHD
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Don't want to be a smart aleck, but:
DOT was established by an act of Congress on October 15, 1966, and began operation on April 1, 1967.
If DB introduced sealed beam headlights on RHDs 230, for what market was that? 3 large markets have RHD: U.K. Australia and Japan.
So, was there another sealed beam requirement before the U.S.?
You can read the history in any number of places. Before NHTSA and DOT, there was SAE (still there) and they wrote and adopted many standards, and I think they did the headlight standards. Sealed beams first came on as twin 5"; then a dual 7", then the square, and now it's all part of design.
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SAE may have written a standard but that would have never made it directly to a legal requirement. The Society of Automotive Engineers used to have a strong lobbying power, but that is gone to a great extend. Considering that many of the leading SAE members are managing engineers at major car manufacturers or retirees thereof, there would definitely be (and definitely is or was) a conflict of interest if any SAE standard would become law.
I remember the extended discussions about replacing R134 as an air-conditioning fluid and the proposals that were pushed by the SAE.
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SAE may have written a standard but that would have never made it directly to a legal requirement.
Again, for those so interested you can read the history and the dates (for headlamps) are pretty clear. The only reasoning given was that before the sealed beam requirement there was a hodge-podge of incompatible pieces and parts. The sealed beam added a measure of commonality so that any car owner could go anywhere to get a headlight. The sealed beam requirement was first for a 7" dual (hi/lo) unit, then they allowed separate high/low of 5", and then onto a number of square-ish designs before we ended up here where anything goes...
The fact that DOT and NHTSA were not formed until the mid 60's isn't relevant; Prior to formation of DOT, it was under the Commerce Department, administered by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation. That group administered the tasks we now associate with DOT. There were plenty of rules and regulations written into the CFR and USC that covered all kinds of things with cars...many of these laws have been around for many decades and are now all administered, as you point out by NHTSA and DOT.
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Achim,
There are two versions of the 'rest of world' headlights.
One is the extreme flat faced lens and the usual rounded front lens.
Is this part of your query of variations?
Walter
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....3 large markets have RHD: U.K. Australia and Japan.
So, was there another sealed beam requirement before the U.S.?
South Africa was the other big market for RHD
Mike and Garry,
here is a link to a W111 Fintail built in Germany for the SA market, it has the Euro style lamps, no sealed beams.
https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1072372
In a long and detailed article on headlamp evolution: https://www.revolvy.com/page/Headlamp?reload=1&_=385463
it is stated that: "Britain, Australia, and some other Commonwealth countries, as well as Japan and Sweden, also made extensive use of 7-inch sealed beams, though they were not mandated as they were in the United States.[8]"
Reference 8 mentions somewhat sarcastically that:
"In 1940, the American auto industry standardized on the 7-inch circular sealed beam headlight. There were to be two of these hermetically sealed lens-reflector-bulb modules on each vehicle, a system that quickly became enshrined in Federal law as the only type allowed. This standardization solved some significant problems with the previous system of unsealed, non-standardized headlights — some used specialized reflectors, lenses, and bulbs that had no way to be aimed other than a wild guess — but it also put a hard stop to progress in automotive lighting in North America. Technological advancements in the field remained off-limits to American drivers for years — decades — after they became standard equipment for drivers in Europe and elsewhere. The first automotive halogen headlight bulb, for example, was released in 1962 after having been cooperatively developed by a working group of French, German, and Italian bulb and headlight makers. The headlights were filled with a halogen gas such as iodine or bromine and the inert gas let the filament run hotter, making the headlights more powerful, efficient, and compact than standard units. But they were banned in the U.S., where non-halogen sealed beam headlights (produced almost exclusively by a small number of American makers) remained the only type permitted until 1979. That's when halogenized sealed beams became available, but American drivers still couldn't see any better with the improved bulbs; automakers chose instead to use the extra halogen efficiency to reduce the headlights' wattage while keeping the beam performance above the legal minimum, enabling the use of cheaper, thinner wires and lighter-duty headlight switches."
When it comes to glare US standards are still behind the rest of the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_lighting#Dipped_beam_(low_beam,_passing_beam,_meeting_beam):
"UN Regulations for headlamps specify a beam with a sharp, asymmetric cutoff preventing significant amounts of light from being cast into the eyes of drivers of preceding or oncoming cars.[8][9] Control of glare is less strict in the United States-based Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) beam standard. It is contained in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 (FMVSS / CMVSS 108)."
Daniel Stern - whose beam setting alignment procedure we have linked here https://www.sl113.org/wiki/Electrical/Lights - has been for many years an advocate for change of Standard 108:
https://www.danielsternlighting.com/nhtsa/NHTSA.html
but he concluded: "The public was allowed to vent via the public comment period, and then, as happened with the agency's nominal interest in reducing glare from overly-bright daytime running lights, the docket was quietly closed and nothing was done."
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The takeaway from this shouldn't be "USA bad, rest of world good" with headlights, because there is a flip side to every story, and a reason for every decision.
For many year, changing headlights on any US-spec car meant a few moments with a screwdriver, and a $8-$12 replacement sealed beam. Cheap, easy.
Today, not so much. The modern headlignts, such as some of those upgrades on a new MB can cost $800 or more just on the initial purchase. Replacing the headlamp on my lowly Ford is major surgery, and the parts are hundreds of dollars.
What was once easy and cheap, is no longer either.
I will grant you that sometimes I want (regardless of what I'm driving!) brighter lights. But, I also want better brakes, faster acceleration, wipers that move faster, instant defogging, and to win the lottery... ;)
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Hit a deer last year with my 2015 C300. Resulting damage included both ILS Headlight assemblies to be replaced at $2320 a piece.
John
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Hit a deer last year with my 2015 C300. Resulting damage included both ILS Headlight assemblies to be replaced at $2320 a piece.
Hitting a deer is never good. Not for the car and not for the deer. But makes you kinda want those $10 sealed beams when it comes time to replace them! People don't realize that things like $2,000+ headlamp assemblies significantly contribute to the cost of insurance. Ford truck lovers are learning that, as are the insurance companies, when the repair bills for the all aluminum F150s are coming in...yeah, aluminum is great, and light, but it's a bear to work with at the assembly level, even more so at the repair level. That's reflected in insurance costs just as sure as your driving record is...
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Hit a deer last year with my 2015 C300................
Hope you and any other passengers are OK John. Not to concerned about the deer!
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Hello Ralph, thanks for inquiring. No injuries to us and the deer ran back into the woods as we were not driving very fast and it was a glancing blow to him. It was on a road close to home that we have driven 1000s of times but he just bolted out of the dense shrubbery along side of the road and clipped the left side of the car damaging the hood, left fender, bumper/grill and the AC condenser but no damage to the frame or mechanical components. Both headlights had to be replaced because there is a strut that runs along the top of the radiator that snapped off a small plastic tab on the right headlight. Luckily, the body shop I used does terrific work and the car is "like new" again. Glad I wasn't in my Pagoda.
John
Sorry Achim for Hijacking your thread