Headlight wiring question

[Vern Campbell]

I picked up two 4511 headlights for my '55 Cub today and not only will they fit great with a little rewiring, but the price was great--$9 each. I do have to lengthen the original wiring since mine were single screw, and these are the two screw. I don't have enough wire to reach inside the housing to the new light terminal. What gauge wire should I use? The wire now is the original cloth covered wire. I was thinking of splicing under the hood because I don't really want to rewire back to the switch. Is cloth covered wire available any more? Thanks for your advice.
Vern

[Bigdog]

Vern, #14 gauge wire will be fine. Cloth covered wire is still available. Check out some antique vehicle restoration websites or supply houses. Maybe http://www.wiringharnesses.com would sell some wire scraps.

[Ron L]

Vern. Glad to hear they worked out for you. You could also use stranded wire with red covering to match the paint and be somewhat hidden.......... (of course, I guess you want to be original looking!)

[Jim Becker]

Your left wire will probably reach the right light. Then you only need to make one splice.

[Vern Campbell]

Thank you, gentlemen, for your help. I just came in from cleaning up the drifted snow by the light from my newly wired headlights ! Ron, as you had advised me in another post, the 4511's fit fine. Not much clearance though between the terminals and the metal housing, so I covered the connections with liquid electrical tape to prevent shorting out. I don't know if that was a good idea--I know almost as much about wiring as I do about women. I ended up using red 14 gauge wire which I ran to both sides to match, although Jim was just right, the left side would have given me plenty to rewire the right light. Bigdog, I checked out the AgriServices link and called them this morning. I ended up ordering a whole harness from them. I looked mine over carefully and it's pretty shabby in places. I'm going to be rebuilding the touch control unit shortly, so it will be a good chance to rewire it then. Thanks again for the help.