[highrisk]

Here is something I learned doing a LED conversion on the taillights and front parking lights. I replaced my front and back lights with LED lights and also replaced the flasher with one rated for LED. The flasher is a CF-12ANL. First the turn signals would not flash. I found I needed to reverse the wires in the connector for the flasher and that solved that problem. The next problem was both front turn signals would flash at the same time no matter if I had the right or left turn signal on. This was caused because my car has a single turn signal indicator in the dash which causes the electric to back feed through the little bulb in the dash. If you have a separate light for the right and left turn signal this should not be a problem. The cure is very simple. You need to put a diode in the turn signal dash light and make the light into a normal grounded type light. SuperBrightLED offers a very simple kit to do this complete with simple instructions. It says it is for motorcycles but it works for cars as well.
https://www.superbrightleds.com/more...kit/1190/2805/
After doing these two simple modifications everything works great. You will also need to install the diode if you are converting the dash lights to LED. If you don't you will only get an indicator when the right turn signal is on. This is because most LEDs are polarity sensitive. Be sure to hook the wire coming from the diode to the center wire for the bulb and the ground wire to the wire that connects to the side of the bulb, again, LEDs are polarity sensitive and if you hook it up the other way it will not work. If you install the diode for the turn signals then you can also run an LED in the dash indicator.

Hope this helps someone,
Dale

[Bobalong]

Good information to have

[highrisk]

Hope it helps.
Dale

[Jack Blum]

Great info. Thanks. I have put led in my dome light and backup. Now I can see much better in reverse.

[highrisk]

Originally Posted by Jack Blum

Great info. Thanks. I have put led in my dome light and backup. Now I can see much better in reverse.

I have actually converted all of my lights to LED. The only one that I couldn't change was the glove box and Gen Light. The glove box is reverse polarity so the LED won't work and the Gen Light the LED is too long and it hits the red plastic lens. I actually scratched the brand new lens all up trying to get the LED to fit before I realized it was damaging the red plastic. Now my new dash has red missing from the Gen lens
Dale

[fbd73]

Great advice. Thank you.
I am going to convert the rear lamps to LED.
Here in Australia, our indicators are amber. so I intend pulling the rear lamps apart and making a whole new set which will have taillight, stoplight and indicators all LED.
It will be a big job but I think it will look great when finished. From the outside, everything will look standard (all red taillight) but hopefully the indicators will shine amber through the red.
That's my plan anyway. Hopefully it works.

[highrisk]

Originally Posted by fbd73

Great advice. Thank you.
I am going to convert the rear lamps to LED.
Here in Australia, our indicators are amber. so I intend pulling the rear lamps apart and making a whole new set which will have taillight, stoplight and indicators all LED.
It will be a big job but I think it will look great when finished. From the outside, everything will look standard (all red taillight) but hopefully the indicators will shine amber through the red.
That's my plan anyway. Hopefully it works.

Sounds like a great plan. I am glad I did it because the LED tail lights are so much brighter and the 65 only uses one bulb per side so the brighter lights really help. Also with the interior lights LED you can leave the door open and not have to worry about your battery being drained quickly or the housing getting hot and melting.
Dale

[66 Wagon]

Originally Posted by fbd73

...(all red taillight) but hopefully the indicators will shine amber through the red.
That's my plan anyway. Hopefully it works.

I won't work the way you plan. It will shine red if you don't have a clear or amber lens.
Have seen white LEDs behind a red taillight lens and it was red, light red.

But there's an easy way to get amber turn signals in the rear, if the law says amber indicators.
Put amber LEDs in the backup lamps and use them as turn signals.
It isn't the most beautiful solution but if the regulations says amber turn signals it's a simple way getting it without adding an extra amber lens or lamp.
If it's legal with red indicators use red LED's.

[66 Wagon]

I'm also planning to do a LED conversion on my '66 Bonneville.
All the 1157 bulbs will be replaced with LEDs, a white/amber LED "bulb" in the front for white parklights and amber turn signals and all red LEDs in the rear.
I have already done an H4 and H1 conversion of the headlights so I will replace the halogen bulbs with LEDs in the headlights as well.

[fbd73]

I have a late model Corvette as well and I had taillights modified for it. I was working in Vietnam for a while and took the taillights over there. A shop separated the lens from the body and put full red lens in (the European and Australian design has a small half moon amber section). Then they used particular LEDs that had red and amber bulbs together. I now have 2 rows of red brake lights and if I put the indicator on, the lower row blinks amber. They even show amber through the red lens. Looks great. I have seen similar designs on late model Audi vehicles where the whole lens is red but amber shows through.

If the project works out how I envisage, it will look standard from the outside, but once the brake light, taillights or indicators are used, it will look more modern.

The whole car will be a blend of modern and classic, so this is just one little bit of it.

[highrisk]

Originally Posted by fbd73

I have a late model Corvette as well and I had taillights modified for it. I was working in Vietnam for a while and took the taillights over there. A shop separated the lens from the body and put full red lens in (the European and Australian design has a small half moon amber section). Then they used particular LEDs that had red and amber bulbs together. I now have 2 rows of red brake lights and if I put the indicator on, the lower row blinks amber. They even show amber through the red lens. Looks great. I have seen similar designs on late model Audi vehicles where the whole lens is red but amber shows through.

If the project works out how I envisage, it will look standard from the outside, but once the brake light, taillights or indicators are used, it will look more modern.

The whole car will be a blend of modern and classic, so this is just one little bit of it.

That sounds like a very good idea. I would imagine the yellow LED showing thru the red lens would make it more of an orange color but you should see a definite difference between the red and yellow LEDs. I installed an LED conversion on my 2000 Harley Wide Glide years ago and it had red and yellow LEDs in the stop light and turn signals behind a red lens. When you turned on the turn signal the yellow LEDs would flash and you could actually see yellow thru the red lens. You wouldn't think it would work that way but it does.
Dale
Dale