mtdloft Posted November 30, 2007 Share Posted November 30, 2007 I'm not keen on beam benders and traveling back and forth across the channel means either swapping my hella L/R dip lenses or being illegal on one side or the other (perish the thought). Swapping the Hellas is a devilish job and it occurred to me that maybe I could bolt on an extra headlight unit which dipped contrarily to the fixed units. My google threw up the Cibie oscars, but they are rather large, - and black but I suppose I could paint them. Any bolt on needs to look tidy so I wonder if anyone's done something similar and could propose a manufacturer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted November 30, 2007 Share Posted November 30, 2007 You may find that the Oscar light is unique as it carries an H4 'dippable' bulb and is available in left-dipping and right-dipping versions. It was an option I considered for my last motorhome. The Oscar has regularly been used for the main headlights on 'open wheel' kit cars of the Lotus 7 type. It's possible there are more compact equivalents nowadays, so exploring the kit-car marketplace could prove fruitful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W3526602 Posted November 30, 2007 Share Posted November 30, 2007 Hi, I queried something similar a few months ago, but not sur if her or on another group. I was told that I could be "done" in France for having a lamp capable of dazzling oncoming traffic, even if that lamp was not switched on, cos I was using a different pair of lamps. Perhaps the solution is to fit continental lamps into the proper holes, then fit extra lamps for driving in UK? Do you need dipping spots? Could you get away with having UK main beam, and use continental fog lamps instead of dip-beam. if you see what I mean? 602 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtdloft Posted November 30, 2007 Author Share Posted November 30, 2007 I think I've read on this forum that the tilt up edge on British dip beams is NOT a legal req for MOT but may be necessary for Construction & use... All very confusing.... BUT does anyone know if the continentals would accept a flat top beam a la fog lamp suggested above? Seems like a good compromise and fog lights are a lot smaller than oscars. Meanwhile I'll trawl the kit car market. Thanks for the tip Derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 mtdloft: I fitted Cibie Oscar Plus driving-lights to one of my cars. This is a smaller, lighter unit than the Oscar and doesn't dip, but it's still a hefty brute and needed to be very firmly mounted to minimise vibration and potential damage. The Oscar and Oscar Plus are really best mounted on a 'bull-bar' type structure as used historically on rally cars or on the front of many 4 x 4s. Like you, I wanted a tidy arrangement and had to junk the Cibie mounting system and fabricate a completely new one to attain this objective. I eventually managed to attach them to the front bumper, but this wouldn't have been possible with the bulkier Oscar. Sticking a pair of massive Oscars (or any large auxiliary lights) on the front of your Hymer A-Class is unlikely to enhance its beauty - though it might earn you some street credibility. Some smaller dipping light-units are marketed via the classic- and kit-car-related Stafford Vehicle Components (SVC) website. See: http://www.s-v-c.co.uk/lights_head.html It's logical to assume that most of these produce a 'UK pattern' dipped beam as standard, though it might be possible to insert a right-dipping lens unit in the 5.75" versions. The SVC site shows some really small H4-bulb-equipped self-contained light units. These are described as "Racing Headlights" and are stated as being not fully road legal for cars. No explicit details are provided, but it's possible that they produce a symmetrical dipped-beam pattern, which would be illegal if the units were used as vehicle headlamps in the UK. I doubt if the lights can produce a genuine asymmetric right-dipping pattern, but you never know. The primary advantage to you would be their compactness. The SVC also shows 90mm Hella light units that I assume are the same as fitted to your Hymer motorhome. If you have the usual 4-light arrangement, I believe the outer units provide main + dip beams and the inner units main beams only. If this is correct, I did wonder if you could change your present Hella inner main-beam-only light units for a pair of main + dip units adjusted to produce a right-dipping 'Continental' pattern. You'd then end up with 4 identical lights, with the outers dipping left and the inners dipping right. You'd need to twiddle with the existing wiring so that all 4 would come on for main beam and there'd be a switch to choose which of the lights dipped depending on whether you were driving in the UK or abroad. (I did something like this on a Reliant Scimitar GTE so that all 4 lights were on when dipped-beam was selected.) Not sure if this is feasible in your case and I'm fairly confident it would break UK lighting regulations. I don't know if the advice given to 602 is correct that he could be prosecuted in France for having a potentially dazzling light on his vehicle even if he didn't use it. If a French policeman told me this was true I might possibly believe it: if a UK motorcaravanner told me it was true I'd definitely take it with a pinch of salt! My understanding is that, if your vehicle's lights are technically legal in the UK then they are considered to be technically legal abroad. Obviously, when driving abroad, we are obliged by 'foreign' road-traffic regulations to ensure our UK-norm lights do not dazzle, but how this non-dazzling state is achieved (by switching dipped-beam pattern as on your Hellas, by fitting masks or beam converters to obscure or alter the 'dazzle' part of the UK dipped-beam pattern, by temporarily fitting 'LHD' headlamps, or just by adjusting our 'RHD' headlamps radically downwards) is not, apparently, specified. If you are more concerned about legality than convenience, I'm pretty sure that, if you use an auxiliary light to provide an alternative to a dipped-beam headlamp, this will be illegal in the UK and, consequently, also illegal in Continental Europe. This would be true whether you employed dipping units like the Oscar or fog lights as 602 suggests as a possibility. I don't think beam-benders can be fitted successfully to Hella 90mm lights, which means you are back to Square One where you either get your knuckles grazed swapping your Hella lights' dip-beam pattern from left to right and back again each time you take a trip abroad (the 100% legal option), or (the 50% illegal option) you leave the lights in the dipped-beam configuration appropriate to wherever you travel most - UK or Continental Europe - and (if you choose the latter) alter the lights back to UK-norm pattern prior to MOT testing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colin Posted December 1, 2007 Share Posted December 1, 2007 I'm not sure how it works in france, but in UK if you have a light that you can switch on whilst on the road and that light does not comply with c&u lighting regs it is illegal. The way round this that has been used in UK is a remote switch that when driving you cannot access, now if common sence where to prevail, then a change over switch located under the bonnet, that switched from the LHD to RHD lights would be the way to go, but I have no idea if it would be legal in france. Note that in UK there are regs as to how high and distance from edge of vehicle for any lights, I guess french have similier regs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
W3526602 Posted December 2, 2007 Share Posted December 2, 2007 Hi, In Days of Yore, You often saw cars with covers over their spotlamps. I presumed this was to stop them getting damaged or dirty.Or was it to prevent them being illegal when not being used in anger? Any lamp less than 2ft from the ground, more than 6W, may only be used in conditions of fog or falling snow. Those "driving lamps" fitted low on the front of cars are making the drivers liable to a £60 fixed penalty for "inappropriate use of auxilary lamps". Or something like that. There also used to be a rule that you could not have more than 42W on the back of your car, so thats two 21W stop lamps. Has that rule changed to allow the use of hi-level stop lamps? 602 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted December 2, 2007 Share Posted December 2, 2007 The rules governing GB Road Vehicle Lighting are stated in The Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 - Statutory Instrument 1989 No. 1796. There have also been four Amendments issued - in 1994, 1996, 2001 and 2005. (These are the Amendments I'm aware of; there may be more.) Anyone wishing to become the Out&AboutLive forum guru on this subject can use the links shown below. Something to wile away the time over Xmas perhaps and certainly more entertaining than much of the festive TV that will be on! http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si1989/Uksi_19891796_en_1.htm http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si1994/Uksi_19942280_en_1.htm http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si1996/Uksi_19963016_en_1.htm http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2001/20010560.htm http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/20052559.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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