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On 22 Oct 2002, at 13:41, CAD Man wrote: > You would not believe how much more light pours out when there's > good contact AND all these reflective surfaces are....well, reflective. I'll second this. I believe that more than half of the light that comes out of the lights and streams to the rear is reflected off the reflector. If this part of your taillight assemby is corroded the brightness will go down by MUCH MORE than half. The reason this is true is that the reflector is shaped to direct all the light that hits it toward the rear, while the light that doesn't hit the reflector streams out in all directions, basically undirected. A dull or corroded reflector makes a HUGE difference. I once had a friend who had a car with a single Lucas replacable bulb headlight. I think it was actually one of the Lucas Flamethrowers. I thought it must be cool, and it clearly worked okay because I had checked it out in the daylight and it looked okay to me. Somewhat later he was driving behind me and I noticed that the Lucas lamp seemed to be almost dead. Upon examination I discovered that the bulb was fine, but the reflector was totally shot. Good bulb or not, that headlight was worthless. That was my first real lesson in the value of sealed beams, where the reflective coating is sealed away from the weather and won't ever go dull on you. - ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <type3-off@vwtype3.org> For more help, see http://vwtype3.org/list/