DIY: Installing Cibie H4 w/ city lights in stock sealed beam housings

[reggie]

I recently ordered some Cibie H4's and H1's from Daniel Stern for a customer. Daniel was extremely helpful in providing information on the lights and their specifications. I am not sure if he has ever tried putting Cibies w/ city lights in an e30, as they are not quite a direct fit. I do like the end product though!

It was not as easy as I had anticipated. It's not incredibly difficult, but it ate up a lot of time. I thought I'd share here for future reference.

The problem is that there is no clearance in the bucket for the city light. No big deal, get the grinder out and make a clearance...

Cibie-9
Cibie-10
Cibie-13
Cibie-15

The new problem is that the city light is perfectly aligned with the bottom adjuster.





So, now the bulb fits in the bucket, and the City light is barely clearing the adjuster. There is definitely no room for the spade connectors.




To gain some additional clearance, I first tinned the male spade connectors with some solder, and soldered some leads on at 90 degrees. Then I took some side cuts and nipped the scrap wire and the excess of the spade connectors off.






Now we have clearance, but it is a little close for my comfort. I applied some "liquid electrical tape" to both the contacts on the bulb housing, and the bare metal where I trimmed the headlight buckets.







I put some crimp on bullet connectors on my leads and used heat shrink to make them into little pigtails. This way the headlight assemblies can be removed without pulling the city lights out of the housings.



Ready to install!

[DER E30]

Installed pics? Looks good.

[reelizmpro]

Funny these have been out for almost a decade and this is the first time someone has mentioned this issue. Modifying the bucket is no big deal but there's no room for a connector or terminals even after modification? While you did what you could to make it work, I don't like it. Given it's a headlight, there should be a properly insulated terminal connector especially that close to the bucket, preferably waterproof. I wouldn't want to spend that kind of money and have to do all this...not when there are Hella H4's with proper city light kits and OE Euro ellipsoids.

[Mo Brighta]

Reggie-
You put some time and thought into this, got it to work. This proves two things-

1- Almost anything can be done with imagination, time, and a grinder;

2- Folks really REALLY like city lights!

There are other solutions for city lights if you look at different manufacturers, mine have all the sockets and wiring in the center of my H1 low beam, but they are NLA. The H4 lamp makes that difficult due to the size of the base flange. I've seen city lights in high beams, technically incorrect but still a nice effect.

I have seen that paint-on 'liquid electrical tape' goo, been thinking about using it on another project. Maybe I'll get a can and try it out...

Thanks for the detailed writeup, clear pics.

And hats off to Daniel Stern, great guy and a wealth of information.

[reggie]

This is definitely not the ideal way to do city lights. My problem was that we already settled the Cibie H4's, and didn't have time to send them back for another option. I normally don't take the time to do write-ups, but thought this may save someone some frustration. If I were to do it again, I wouldn't go this route. In fact, we were going to go with Hella Bifocals, but Daniel was out of stock.

In response to the insulation, a proper fitting 90 degree boot would be better, like something from the back of an alternator. I'm not horribly concerned, as there is no way there will be metal/metal contact. The liquid electrical tape should prevent corrosion. Admittedly, it looks a bit amateur. Remember too, that this is just the low wattage city light, not the headlight.

I'll post some installed pics along with some before/after gopro video when I get some time to edit it.

[DER E30]

How is the nighttime performance of those?

[reggie]

How is the nighttime performance of those?

They are pretty awesome. "night and day" difference from sealed beams. I'll try to find some time to edit my before/after video this week. It was filmed with an older GoPro, so it may not come through as well as it does in "real life".

[blazinxpk]

good stuff!!

looking forward to the installed pics and video

[wannasupra]

Bump for vids

[15Michaeljoseph]

What are you tapping to make the city lights work?


--Mike

[bmwguy325is]

I like this

[bmwguy325is]

I may add this is better than an HID shit kit. This is a true light upgrade.

[DER E30]

What are you tapping to make the city lights work?


--Mike

Probably the running light wire going to the turn signal or marker light. With euro trim that corner marker light isn't doing anything anyway...

[reggie]

What are you tapping to make the city lights work?


--Mike

On this car I am running them on the fog light circuit, which is gets 15+ ignition power (at the owner's request). Basically, the fogs and city lights are running tandem as DTRL. The fog light switch is still active to turn them on/off, but if you leave the switch in the on position, they come on with the ignition.

On my personal e30, I run them on the parking light circuit.

[reggie]

I finally had some time to edit that video down some. It is a bit lengthy, but you can see some side-by-side driving with both sealed beams and Cibies. The video doesn't portrait the full effect, especially from a brightness standpoint, but you can definitely see how much better/broader the beam pattern of the Cibies is. You can see the lines in the road and signs so much better. The high beams are incredible.

In the second part of the video I am running the fog lights. I don't like running them in non-fog conditions, as they tend to draw your eye down. That effect is overly dramatic in the video, as the GoPro is mounted on the hood. From the driver's seat you don't really see the blast of the fogs on the pavement. During this part of the video I am on a newly paved BLACK road with very little stripping. You can still see relatively well.

http://youtu.be/CfAXLNpwOFs