buy 7" headlights for halogen and use 6 volt bulbs; couldn't do any better except go 100w bulbs; with an alternator, 6 volt.
Edit: Believe the best thing to do is to go halogen sealed beams with relays; much more economical for a stock car.
http://www.amazon.com/CandlePower-H4-Quartz-Halogen-Bulb/dp/B000GZL0P8/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1421714420&sr=8-8&keywords=6+volt+halogen+bulb+h4

Either 6v Halogen headlights or a 6v headlight relay. Or both.
Danny Zimmerman has a 6v headlight relay on his '54, and his headlights are real bright.
The new Halogen ones are sealed beam.

thanx

Moved from "Club and Forum - Suggestions & Comments" to "Hudson" category

I too installed a 6V headlight relay (from EBay) on my '54 and the headlights are good and bright.

NAPA stores have halogen 6 volt sealed beams. I strongly suggest that you install a relay even if you don't go to halogen. The relays allow full battery/charging voltage to the lights and relieves the high current drain off the headlight switch. I have a relay on my 51 Pacemaker and the lights are quite good. If I drove a lot more at night I would consider upgrading.. Standard sealed beams are 35 watts where halogen are 55 watts on low and 65 on high so they are a bit more taxing on the charging system, also on the switch and wiring henceforth the need for a relay. I actually have installed a jumper wire (at the dimmer Switch) from the feed wire to the low beam wire that way when I use the high beam my low beams stay on. I have experienced no problems, I drove it in the dark for 2 plus hours on the highway from Rochester NY on the way to the 2012 Nationals. Oddly I can drive around town with the high/low beams on and no one flips their lights at me I guess because modern day cars are so much brighter.

Another 2 ¢: Consider two relays, one for low beam and one for high beam. If you are on a mountain road at night and a relay fails, you will wish you could hit the dimmer switch to keep the front seat clean !!
Even a circuit breaker can't reset fast enough. Don't ask how I know.
Below on my 12V-- 100 Watt H-4 beams {for stock, certainly hide relays}. Below relays is a Schaumburg battery minder or I would put the relays lower & one below the other on the support.

[quote="Richard Dryman" post=8724]Another 2 ¢: Consider two relays, one for low beam and one for high beam. If you are on a mountain road at night and a relay fails, you will wish you could hit the dimmer switch to keep the front seat clean !!
Even a circuit breaker can't reset fast enough. Don't ask how I know.
Below on my 12V-- 100 Watt H-4 beams {for stock, certainly hide relays}.

You are right, I do have two relays on mine I have mine mount on the radiator support in front of the battery. Don't fprget tp put a fuse in the main feed wire to each relay. A 14 Amp will be good enough.

Doug, you never mentioned the year of your car. We're all assuming it is 1940 or newer, originally equipped with sealed beam headlights. If it is 1939 back to the late 1920's, you can purchase a newly-made 6-volt halogen headlamp bulb with the same base as original, which will fit right into the socket.

Jim, I always overdo; I ran 2 #12 wires to + battery post with a fuse in each wire; use the minifuse in the molded holder. and also use heat shrink on every terminal. Don't like red-blue-yellow plastic showing with these connectors.
Also, Jim, if you use a diode at the dimmer switch, believe you could have both lights on at high beam and only the low ones on at low beams; eliminate back-feed.

Oh, yes, I just loved those old circuit breaker headlight switches used on Hudson and GM cars (those are the only ones I'm familiar with). It's the thrill of a life time to be running 60, 65 or so on a two lane road on a pitch black night and suddenly you are "lightless"!!!! So to speak. :woohoo:
Usually followed up by using a shovel and a lot of cleaning of the front seat!!!

Hudsonly,
Alex B

'Way back when, I had an Edsel Station Wagon that would randomly leave me in the dark. The incident that always comes to mind first was traveling a windy (long "i") country road, at night, driving on compact snow and ice. Heading into an S curve the lights went out. Only blind luck and the fact that I knew the road very well (on the way to a girlfriend's house) had me still on the road when they came back on. Needless to say, I couldn't hit the brakes.
Them were the good ol' days!
F

I had a friend whose only car for more than thirty years and two hundred thousand miles was a 1937 Packard model 120. The car had an extra position on its dashboard light switch, which produced low beams at one position of the floor switch, but on the other position of the floor switch, one headlight went to high beam, but the other headlight stayed on low beam.

He changed this so low beams worked normally, but both low and and high beams would be on at the same time, when the floor switch was pressed for high beam.

This system worked fine when he used sealed beams where the whole unit was evacuated, and was therefore the bulb. However when he used units that looked like sealed beams, but actually had a regular bulb inside, the glass of the regular bulb would eventually crack and burn out.