Ken Sair started a thread in January about how Roy Mueller was able to significantly improve the brightness level of the headlamps in his Contessa.
Roy and I were at the Las Vegas ralley last month and he installed the upgrade on our Monterey. Roy and I agreed it might be fun to video his procedure as a reference for others that might want brighter headlights.
The basics are that on many motorhomes Beaver ran current from a 12 volt bus through the headlight switch, then the dimmer switch and out to the headlights. Somewhere between the two switches there is enough resistance to cause a voltage drop and dim headlights.
Roy rewires it so that the current coming from the dimmer switch controls one of two relays. The relays then pass the 12 volt current from the existing headlight circuit breaker directly to the headlights.
For parts, Roy used a couple of ordinary relays from an auto parts store, some wire and connectors. All the work is done in the easily accesable electrical bay forward of the left front tire.
I'm not Steven Spielberg and Roy is not Brad Pitt, but we got it done. Roy did the work and while I tried to hold the camera steady. It took me a couple of days to edit down to 18 minutes, but I think the result will be useful to anyone who owns a Beaver and doesn’t like the headlight level.
YouTube has a 15 minute limit, so I broke it into two parts.
Part 1 is here:
http://youtu.be/fmYyoILEhMYPar 2 is here:
http://youtu.be/pIXez9bQNY0If you want a DVD or a computer file to watch, email me with an address.
Thank you to Roy for upgrading my headlights, generously sharing his knowledge and letting my experiment with my new “videographer” hobby.