My fellow Aussie Beatle Bayly knows more about converting Alfa GTV headlights than I do, based on the fact that he’s owned GTV’s – I owned an Alfetta sedan, so I can’t comment on the physical details of how to do it, just on the fact that I’ve upgraded other vehicle headlights, including several Japanese cars. However, I can say that chances are the headlights are H1, and not H3, Beatle Bayly. The reason is that H3 bulbs are generally used on aftermarket driving lights, not headlights, but H1 bulbs are used for both headlights and driving lights. They are usually pretty efficient globes, which is why aftermarket driving lights like Hella Rally 2000, Cibie Oscar and Cibie Super Oscar, which are all very large round driving lights, and among the best available, use H1 globes. If you could use any of those lights on your GTV, they would be ideal driving lights, but sadly, they are really only suitable for large 4WD vehicles and trucks, as they are too large to fit on much else.
The more compact Cibie Oscar Plus driving lights used to – just – fit on the bumper bar of my Alfetta sedan, without sticking out, to augment the standard inadequate headlights. If you think you’ve got it tough, try owning a sedan – the headlights are unique to the vehicle, and the only way they can be upgraded is by fitting higher wattage bulbs and relays, unless you fit driving lights. Beatle Bayly’s advice about tapping into the standard headlight wiring to operate the relays is good advice – that way you can remove the wiring to return the vehicle to standard when you sell the car. It’s what I meant to say, but I don’t know how much people know, so I sometimes leave things out, and assume they know! When I sold my Alfetta, I removed all the relays and wiring, and blanked off the holes for the driving lights in the bumper bar with stainless steel dome headed bolts, to make it look relatively standard. The only way you could tell that it had been upgraded were the holes for the driving lights, and with the blanking bolts, with nice shiny heads, unless you knew that they shouldn’t have been there (i.e if you were an Alfa expert, or had owned one), you would have been none the wiser. There were also some holes for self tapping screws when you lifted the bonnet, where the driving light supports for the top of the driving light had been screwed to, but they were only very small, in the top of the plastic Alfa grille.
On most vehicles using H4 four headlight setups, they work like this. On low beam, the low beam 55W section of the outer lights is used, and the inner set is off. On high beam, the high beam 60W section (filament) of the outer headlights is used (the 55w section of those lights is switched off), and the inner headlights are also switched on. On the standard Alfa GTV headlights, it’s currently set up so that the outer H1 lights are on for low beam, and the inner H1 lights are on for high beam. You don’t need to separately wire the inner headlights via an internal switch, Beatle Bayly, as the lights only come on with high beam, the same as they do in the Alfa’s normal Carello headlights. While it sometimes makes sense to switch separate driving lights off via a separate switch, if they have covers, you don’t need to do that with the inner high beam lights – you need them to operate whenever high beam is selected. All you do is tap off the standard high beam wiring already in the car, and use that to switch the high beam headlight relay on and off. As soon as you go back to low beam, the inner headlights switch off. You need to have two separate relays, one for high beam use, and one for low beam use. American car lighting expert Daniel Stern has a good description on how to wire up headlights using relays, right down to which relay contacts are used, on his website here
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...ys/relays.html .
If you are in Spain, and find it difficult to find replacement headlight inserts locally, then you may be able to buy from places over the internet, including in other countries such as Germany or France. As Hella and Bosch are German, and Cibie are French, they should be available there! (Just pop over the border into France!!!) While I don’t know what the specifics of import/export are in Spain, I think that you are allowed to buy from other countries in the European Union, with fairly free trade. I wouldn’t buy brands that you haven’t heard of, even though you can obtain them locally, as they may not be very good quality. I’d stick with brands that are known for making good headlights, such as Bosch, Cibie, Hella, or Narva. I’m sure that car accessory shops in larger cities in Spain would sell them.
Don’t go for unknown headlight brands. After all, Carello also used to sell headlights and driving lights, and you know what they are like! I once bought a second hand car which had a set of aftermarket Carello driving lights, as well as standard (rectangular) Carello headlights. The person who I bought the car off used to travel long distances in it, so he’d tried to improve the woeful standard lights, but he’d gone for the wrong brand of driving light – even the Carello driving lights were pretty awful (sealed beam driving lights). I replaced them with Hella driving lights, and the standard headlights with replacement Hella inserts, and the difference was amazing. I’ve used Hella and Cibie headlight inserts (and driving lights), and I’ve also seen Bosch and Narva headlights (on the cars of friends), and they are all good, and much better than the standard headlights most cars come with, which are generally built to a price – cheap and nasty! And if you want a set of the US headlight buckets, why not try asking on this forum? There are plenty of American people on this forum, and some may be willing to sell headlights, or just the headlight buckets, from cars which they are dismantling for spare parts. Why not try asking, in a new thread? Try a “US headlights wanted” thread, in the “Alfa Romeo Parts For Sale and Wanted” section, and you may get an answer!
Regards,
Don