Halogen lights and rear Fog light

Post by **Nimrod** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 8:30 am

Buying a 1967 Traveller on Friday (whoopeee!) and like I did with my MG Midget I'm looking at replacing the sealed beam lights with halogen. I'm also looking at fitting a rear fog light as where I live we get an awful lot of fog, especially in the winter. Will the dynamo pump out enough juice to run this setup, or should I do an alternator conversion?

Post by **Rob_Jennings** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:42 am

The lights are rated the same wattage its just more as light with halogen. So in theory you don't need to change....

But if you will be running a lot with lights on then an alternator will probably be a good investment.

Post by **Stig** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:48 am

It depends on the sort of driving you do, the dynamo should be fine unless you spend much time sitting in traffic as it doesn't charge the battery at idle speeds. Halogen lights don't need much more current than sealed beams (55W instead of 45W), the fog light will take a couple of amps. An alternator means you don't worry about switching stuff off when you're in a traffic queue or watching the wipers slow to a crawl. I know some folks have had reliability problems with alternators but mine has been fine and it's not even a recon unit. Personally I'd fit an alternator. [sits back and waits for other opinions]

Post by **Alec** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 11:52 am

Hello Nimrod,

as you will be running on dipped headlights the fog lamp (assuming one at 21 watt) will have about the same load as full beams without fog light so you should not be asking more of the dynamo. And of course if you are in heavy traffic queues you will have the fog light switched off?

Alec