One aspect of owning a military vehicle that I find fascinating is the parts you can get. Termed “New Old Stock”, meaning parts that have never been used, but are made several decades ago. I ordered a blackout headlight from Kaiser Willys (https://www.kaiserwillys.com) and received a part made in WWII – September 1944 assuming I am reading the stamp correctly.
Of course I do not anticipate driving in blackout drive often or at all, but I do like for the truck systems to all be working if I can fix them.
When I was on active duty in the 80s-90s I often had to drive in blackout as the doctrine at the time was to operate exclusively at night as we had superiority in night vision. While that may have been true, not everyone had goggles and I spent the majority of time driving with the tiny of sliver of light these blackout headlights provide. While it works, it requires a great deal of attention and is fairly nerve racking to do. If you are hiding from aircraft, however, it is very effective at reducing how noticeable you are compared with normal headlights. It was the late 90s since I last saw any unit attempt convoy training at night on any large scale.
This blackout headlight style is an older type, and I am not sure what originally came with a factory M37, but the housing I have fits this type of lamp. The light that came with my truck was dim, and the unit was rusted through. These types of headlights are sealed units, the bulb cannot (easily) be replaced, the bulb and outer glass is press fit into the housing meaning the whole thing is replaced normally.
Since my original was rusted through and mostly ruined anyway, I forced the housing apart with a screwdriver and will see if I can adapt some 12v LED in the housing at some point later if the bulbs become difficult to get.
The bulbs are 6v, and the original M37s were 24v, but mine has been converted to 12v. There was a resistor on the old lamp to reduce the voltage from 12v to 6v, which is common, but may have been the cause for the lamp to be dim. I decided to get a small DC-DC buck converter (https://www.walmart.com/ip/12V-to-6V-2-5A-Step-Down-Waterproof-Miniature-DC-DC-Converter-Power-Supply-Module/924106529?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101028229) to power the replacement lamp.
With the buck converter the lamp appears as bright as I remember them being from my time on active duty. The buck converter easily fits in the blackout headlight housing, even after putting some padding on it. If I ever have an occasion to use the blackout drive, it will at least be serviceable.
