Legality of Highbeam removal.

Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:57 am

I fitted an open cone filter to my 318i about three days ago, and it made it p1ss slow...so i decided that out of a paint tin, and some form of washing machiene/tumble dryer bracket i would custom make my own enclosed filter. Looks pretty tidy, works pretty well...but after thinking about it again...decided that a feed from the new "air box" to the front would be ideal...so another trip to focus offered a 1.99 bit of ducting which looks pretty swish.

Now the point of this is (possibly rather foolishly) i decided the best place to put the pipe to was the passangers side high beam light, so i tore the front of the car apart, and took it out!

Does anyone know how legal it is to cruise around with the one highbeam front light?

Edit...and just for the record, comments about it being slow either way, won't be particularly appreciated!

Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:27 am

Definitely illegal to have non symmetrical lights. Not sure about the legality of removing both of them.
Stick the cone filter on ebay. You won't improve on the OE arrangement.

Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:35 am

i`d of checked the legality before showing of your handy work on
here first would`ve bin less time consuming having to correct it .............

Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:30 am

only takes 5 minutes to put the light back in if it is naughty

would you happen to know why its illegal to have non symetrical headlights?

Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:01 am

As long as the outer lights have side, dipped & main beam you can remove the inner Ones but they have to be removed in a pair & unless you modify your grill it's going to look like somebody's had your spotlights away!

Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:42 am

marc has done this on his tech 1 and it looks quite good to be honest. just take it out and put it back in for when it goes to its MOT.

Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:05 pm

or get the single light conversion seen them with one light so it can be done

Mon Sep 17, 2007 1:52 pm

fugazi33 wrote:As long as the outer lights have side, dipped & main beam you can remove the inner Ones but they have to be removed in a pair & unless you modify your grill it's going to look like somebody's had your spotlights away!

Thats right, I asked a mate of mine whos an MOT tester recently.

Basically the main beam lights are just spot lights which come on with the main beam switch. They have a H1 bulb in them.

Your dipped lights have an H4 bulb which has 2 filaments, one for dipped lights and one for main beam (One points up and the other down IIRC). As long as your outer lights have the H4 type bulb then it is perfectly legal to remove the inner lights.

I think you will have to remove both of them though, will help with cooling if you duct it right though

Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:36 pm

choppa7 wrote:.Your dipped lights have an H4 bulb which has 2 filaments, one for dipped lights and one for main beam

Not as standard in the UK, it doesn't. Just a single H1 bulb in each light.
I don't think you could fit a H4 dual filament lamp to a projector unit, as fitted to facelift E30s, and get a decent main beam pattern, as the beam is shaped by a metal mask.
Lights of the correct size that take a H4 lamp are certainly available, and it may be possible to fit a H4 to a pre facelift unit.

Tue Sep 18, 2007 1:32 am

Yeah, my outside lights have two seperate bulbs in them...a sidelight, and a dipped beam, So you reckon changing the dipped beam to a dual fillament bulb (obviously on both sides) would solve the problem? (she's an '88 with the smiley lights

...if that helps)

And then I'd have to do something about the grill on the drivers side, and try not to make it look as retarded as an oldskool VW polo!

Cheers for the inputs guys.
Take it easy

Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:06 am

Brianmoooore wrote:
choppa7 wrote:.Your dipped lights have an H4 bulb which has 2 filaments, one for dipped lights and one for main beam
Not as standard in the UK, it doesn't. Just a single H1 bulb in each light.
I don't think you could fit a H4 dual filament lamp to a projector unit, as fitted to facelift E30s, and get a decent main beam pattern, as the beam is shaped by a metal mask.
Lights of the correct size that take a H4 lamp are certainly available, and it may be possible to fit a H4 to a pre facelift unit.

Should have added something like that to my other post! I think Mk2 Golf headlights are used.