Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 LED Headlamps with DRL

I’m thinking about converting to LED headlights. Ideally, I like the lights on the new Plus Four/Plus Six. I wonder if they’d be plug and play with the 3-wheeler? I doubt it… However, I haven’t seen them available aftermarket, and I suspect they’d be prohibitively expensive if they were.

Something with a horizontal LED DRL could look similar, but that brings up the question regarding any headlight with DRL – how would you wire it? My U.S. spec 3-wheeler has the headlights on with the ignition. If you only wanted the DRL on during the day (no headlight), you would somehow need to change the headlamps to a switched circuit and install a switch somewhere. You could tap a circuit that is switched with the ignition for the DRL and tap the turn signal if you wanted to have it function as an indicator. You may be able to eliminate the separate indicator under the headlamp in this case.

On my car, the parking light switch turns on the taillights only when the ignition is off. It doesn’t do anything with the ignition on, as the taillights, like the headlights are on full time with the ignition. If you didn't mind losing the parking light function, this switch could possibly be repurposed for the headlamps?

Has anyone installed an LED headlamp with separate DRL on a US spec 3-wheeler? Curious what you did and how it worked…

An incomplete answer - I bought the Lumen lights with the DRL light bar that you linked to, but have not fitted them yet. I tested them on the bench, they seem bright and are intelligently designed so that when the turn signal powers on the light bar turns amber, and won't go back to white until the turn signal stops flashing.

My 2020 build US spec M3W does not turn on the headlights with the ignition unlike yours, oddly enough, so I had planned to use the side-light wiring for the DRL. As far as I can tell in my car, the wiring is there but does not do anything, so I can convert it to an ignition-on circuit and then control the headlamps with the switch. I already added a new relay for ignition-switched power as I added some yellow fog lamps as DRLs already (you can use the heated seat fuse as a source of ignition-on power to control the relay), and plan to use that for the light bar. Not sure I see the need to remove the existing turn signals.

Not sure what the best solution is to have switchable headlights without re-wiring the dash, unless someone else has worked this one out. Perhaps add another switch under the dash?

Not a complete answer to your question, but you might be interested to check out this THREAD.

Thanks for the responses.



John Mat - That's odd that your headlights behave differently than mine. Just curious - Which dashboard do you have? I have the "Heritage" which is the newer one with the round gauge bezels.



If you look at the row of switches, I have fog lights on the left and then parking lights - no headlight switch.

Looking in my Owner's Handbook, they only show the "standard" dash with the square bezel gages (naturally)



Even though this is not the best photo for the switch markings, #18 is the headlight switch, not parking lights like mine. If you read the description for #18:



It would appear that the #18 headlight switch is 3 position: Off / Parking / headlights. The parking light switch in my dash is most definitely 2-position.

JohnMat - Do you have the "standard" dash? Is the headlight switch 3 position?

Anyone else with the newer "Heritage" dash? How do your headlights behave? On all the time or somehow switched?

I also have the heritage dash. I think where you have a parking lights switch I have a headlights switch, but it only has 2 positions. I’ll check how it is marked tomorrow.

This side of the pond we have Euro 3 with conventional 3 position light switch that can only be sold in the UK and Euro 4 for the rest of Europe that has 2 position switch with lights on with ignition and parking.
As I have the standard dash I can’t tell you if all the heritage dashboards come wired as yours.

Closing on my action - I can confirm my March 2020 build US spec M3W has a 2-position light switch, which turns the headlamps off and on when the ignition is on, and just the tail lamps when the ignition is off.

Who knows why this switch should vary between two different US spec cars. Perhaps there are state rules that have to be complied with depending on where it was imported? Mine came in through Long Beach to Morgan West in Santa Monica, CA. Another Morgan mystery, there seem to be quite a few.

mine us that way as well. switch to turn on. It is rather interesting because all motorcycles in the US are required to have always on headlamps, and the last time you could buy a motorcycle with a headlamp switch was the mid 70's

Very interesting that the switch is different between our two US spec cars. I guess if I decide to go for LED headlights, I'll either get one without a DRL feature, or have the DRL and low/dipped beam on all the time. Not the end of the world...