Headlight Modification

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I have been trying to find out how headlights control the dipping but without much success so far. I have been trying for over 2 years to get left hand drive headlights for my LDV Convoy van but there are none available. I want to get the UK van registered on Hungarian plates but they insist I change the headlights. I'm wondering if I modify the existing lights so that the bulb holders go in the other way up, would that change the dip direction from left to right?
 
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Sadly no because the dip beam would be thrown upwards, I'm afraid.....(at least I think I'm right here)
Beam deflectors are of course available for European driving but they just blank out the dip beam projection and I don't know if this would be acceptable in your situation.
Maybe continental bulbs are different - anyone?
I presume the LDV was never exported from blighty, then?
John :)
 
They were exported but only in very small numbers. There was also a version of the van made in Turkey but various people I have contacted there have not been helpful. :( They used to allow the beam deflectors but I'm told they tightened up on the regulations and they no longer pass them like that.
I have even looked for lights off a different vehicle I could use but the LDV ones are a strange shape and quite large.
 
That seems to be quite a problem then......how about breakers yards where there could be a Turkish variant?
John :)
 
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I have been discussing this on the LDV Facebook group with a chap from Ukraine who converts these vans to left hand drive. He was telling me there is a plastic segment you can remove which allows the bulb to be rotated to a different position. I have done this and will try the lights when it gets dark, to see if it has helped.
 
Interesting one this.....rotating the bulb could diffuse the beam to some extent but not for more than about 45 degrees from the vertical, I'd guess.
I would have really thought that new headlamp lenses would be the only real cure but do lets know how you get on!
John :)
 
Not impossible to be able to turn the lamp gubbins to LHD. Older BMW's had this in the 80's, E30's, E32's and E34's certainly did.
 
Moving a plastic locator to a different position to select dip right or dip left was common on many headlights in the 1970s and 1980s. The dip beam filament of the H4 lamp (bulb) is offset from the focal point of the reflector by a certain amount, and rotating that filament (i.e. the entire lamp) relative to that centre-line changes the beam so the dip pattern is either to the left or to the right.

HTH
 
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