Remember When

Quote: AZDuffman

Quote: AutomaticMonkey

Quote: Dieter

Quote: EvenBob

Quote: Dieter

I don't remember the old big headlights being all that complicated. The aiming adjustment screws were separate from the mounting screws; pull the wire, pull the trim ring, and hold your hand (gloved! It's hot!) so the glass doesn't hit the pavement. Jiggle the new one in, secure it with the trim ring, and wire it up.

It was actually a lot easier than half these newfangled bulbs where you need to either pull the battery to get to it from the back, or pull the whole reflector lens out to get enough room.

The modern permanent headlights are stupidly expensive if they ever do need changing, but most people just get a new car before the LED 's are expected to burn out.
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So you changed a lot of headlights on 50s and 60s cars then? They were always burning out And I always carried at least two. Same thing with brake lights And the thermostat. You could always tell when the thermostat was bad'cause you didn't get any heat coming out from under the dashboard.
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A handful. My recollection is that they were all very similar until the late 1970's when rectangular lights started to appear. Those still had the same basic mechanism, just with corners, and maybe no alignment notch.

Cars, pickups, motorcycles, farm equipment, bulldozers... headlights is headlights.

In the 1990's, the little bulbs that slipped into the reflector/lens assembly started to show up. Those were different than the big glass bulb with the fresnel front and the mirrored parabola in the back.
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There were always 4 versions of headlights- square, round, and a 2 bulb system or 4 bulb system either square or round. As I recall high end GM had 4 square, Mopar used 4 round, Ford used 1 round and AMC used 1 square, but there were many exceptions.

You could buy them in a lot of places and if a store sold motor oil good chance they had headlights. But I had to be careful when discussing them, as due to sharing an accent with Springsteen "headlights" can be pronounced the same as a condition associated with schoolchildren who try on each other's hats, leading to unfortunate misunderstandings when asking a store clerk if they have them.

Yes, I need to be careful when using the colloquial term for the lowest ranked card in a deck of cards as well.
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When I was a kid some goof on the next block set his truck with one square and one round.
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