A while back I found out that putting halogen lights on an older Galaxie had a major drawback when you used the brights at night! The drawback was NO LIGHTS! What would happen as the extra current coursed through the old style switch is that the built in circuit breaker would get hot enough to cut in and shut down my lights. After doing a little research I came upon a schematic on an F-100 Ford truck site to build a relay box that would essentially bypass the headlight switch and allow the headlights to run off the battery directly through two heavy duty 30 amp relays. After building one and trying it out on the “problem” car, our 1967 Country Sedan Wagon, I found that it worked very well and wrote an article about it for our magazine including the schematic for the relay box. Then I found that members were contacting me and wanting me to build them a box so they wouldn’t have to deal with the research and leg work necessary to obtain the box and all the components necessary to make it work. Well since then I have had over 100 boxes go out to members all over the country and found at Carlisle last year some had made the effort and built their own boxes using the schematic in the article and everyone was having great success using this method of bypassing the problem headlight switch. The switch itself is used only to actuate the relays and that is it!

But do you think I would be happy with just run-of-the-mill halogens? NAAAA....so I started looking to see if I could put H4 and H1 bulbs in one of our cars and still have it work with the relays and not have a problem with the wiring. Apparently using the high wattage H4 and H1 bulbs that I bought, the box gets hot enough to start to melt. So my new boxes for this type application are going to be full of holes to cool the relays.

I contacted Daniel Stern Lighting on the WWW and he agreed to sell me eight (for two cars) CIBIE French made E-code (European code) 5 1/4” headlight pods, 4 for H-4 and 4 for H-1 bulbs. And of course I didn’t buy 55 watt bulbs! I bought 100 watt high beam and 90-130 watt low/high beam H-4’s. Which is why running the high beams heated the relay box up! The beams are unbelievable the way they light up the road in front of the car and are designed in such a way that so far in six months of using them I have only had two people on curves flash their brights. I guess my adjustment was good enough to keep from blinding anyone. These are so good on country roads that I can’t say any more.

Also, with some research, I was able to obtain some Polycarbonate headlight protectors to protect the $240 worth of headlight pods on the Galaxie. I make them available with the boxes in case someone wants some excellent protection from rocks and something that looks cool too!

Below are two pictures of the headlights on the 64. The single one is showing the pattern of the H-4 CIBIE lens. Pretty interesting isn’t it? It disperses the light very well with no “hot spot” on the road in front of you. And the other picture shows the Polycarbonate protectors on the pods. I had these type of protectors on our ‘67 Country Sedan up in Washington because they use rock during the winter and all the time my headlights were getting broken. Since I have had them on the ‘67 not one light bulb has been damaged and the covers still look good after 8 years! They haven’t yellowed or cracked. Every time I turn around someone comments on them and at every show I go to someone wants some.

Remember, if you are using a generator to stick with lower wattages. I have a 90 amp alternator and can run the high wattage bulbs with no apparent problem except the box needing ventilation.