LED tailights - are they used here?

i put them in my bumperguard tailight housings due to the fact that a regular 1157 bulb was melting my lens. nice cool LED fixed that and can be seen very well.

 

im a traditional nazi i guess. i think if your building a period car, and you want to keep it "traditional" lose the leds, disc brakes, radial tires, simpson seat belts, cup holder, yada yada yada. if you are building a car with a full camaro clip and all of the new car ammenities, you have a street rod. which is fine, but it aint no traditional hotrod which is what this board is about. if safety is the #1 concern, i sure as hell wouldnt be building a hotrod. i would buy a prius.

zombie

 

I own an 01 Kenworth that I drive in all kinds of conditions in SoCal... and I swithched to LED's and have noticed a difference in how other drivers will let me change lanes, etc. Of course were talking alot more LED's, but I did notice a difference for the good.

I think it would depend on where you live and what your up against. I know one thing...if you get tagged in a rod it ain't gonna be pretty.

I don't have them on the 35 but would consider them in a stock housing.

 

I conducted a fairly exhaustive test on TAIL/PARK - stock - ***emblies a couple of years ago.
It included the best COLOR for the "bucket" - inside of the housing - and BULB combinations.

BEST inside color; GLOSS WHITE.
BEST Bulb - using the white bucket - MULTI LAMP LED bubs.
(these multi lamp LED bulbs contained as many as 16 individual LEDs mounted on CONVENTIONAL bulb bases; i.e. 1157 - and needs NO socket modification)

The LED bulb needs to be a type that will work with the stock LENSES.
(no one will know what your running for a bulb when set up correctly)
LED bulbs draw MUCH LESS current.
LED bulbs are MUCH cooler.

Halogen bulbs while they DO put out more light, have been known to crack stock lenses because of their HIGH HEAT OUTPUT!

One other thing that came out of the tests. 90% of the bulb sockets in vehicles over 20 years old had POOR GROUNDS!!

Improve the grounds; and in a lot of cases the improvement in the tail/park light output was SIGNIFICANT!!
(a ground directly from the bulb base to the wiring panel works the best; no s****ing of fresh paint or rust!)

 

I would never use 'em but do what you want.

Two things I wanna mention...I don't know if they have changed them alot but on the ones for street rods and bikes I used to notice they were very directional. If you were to the side or looking at a car in 3/4 view you could not see them very well. If you were right behind them they were super brite! I noticed on a car that had some mounted very low that you could not see them very well and it cancelled the reason for them. Am I the only that has noticed this or am I crazy?

The other thing, has anyone been behind a Cadillac Escalade or car with the new ones in them? They are so freaking brite (and right at eye level on the SUV for most people in cars) that they are blinding and I have seen spots big time after sitting behind one at a stop light. I question if they are so bright they are a problem. I freaking hate those SUV's with them at night when they are in front of me. I saw a post of someother site about a guy saying he was seeing so many spots from one in front of him that he almost was in an accident. Once again am I alone in the psycho crazy boat on this?

 

I'm with you on the brightness problem, but not as bad as the projector headlights. I was riding in the car with my friend last night, talking about this. On the freeway, with lightposts, and surrounded by other cars with their headlights, do you really need a hundred million candlepower? ****, I've seen people drive for miles in the dark not realizing their lights were off.

 

Dave, how many time will we have to rehash this info before folks learn how to do a search!? I spent the day searching for Flatty info, witht he right keywords I had more than I could read in 2 years!

 

but it's not really.

in the last 15 years the conditions of the road have changed - look at drum brakes - properly tuned, they were safe enough for daily road use until disc brakes and *****s who don't know how to drive or brake properly became the norm. try stopping a 1+ ton car on 4 drums when some idiot cuts in front of you, and then slams on his stop-on-a-dime ABS disc setup.

these days half the drivers have their brain everywhere else but on the road - whether it's a cell phone, a dvd player, or whatever excuse they have not to focus on what they're doing when they're doing it. if LEDs help to cut through that mental fog even a little bit, i'd consider it a good investment.

 

The one real drawback to LEDs, up here in the frozen North, is the fact that they don't make heat. Semi's with them get a coat of snow and ice over the lens, and they disappear completely. The regular bulbs melt it off. Not a problem for California, maybe, but we don't all live in sunny climes.

 

Hoptup....they let you on the road with those little bitty glimmers out back? If they were arc light bright they couldn't be seen in poor conditions. I realize a slammed custom isn't going to be on the road in rush hour all that often, but I'd want a lot more area lighting up if it was my *** up front!

 

**** I must be bored, I read this whole thread!

 

my $0.02 worth:F...UGLY...

I tried LEDs on my 56 Bel Air but couldn´t get used to it, to me it´s like tilt columns in a Hot Rod, it just doesn´t look right to me.
I changed back , now I´m using OEM taillights on my 62 Impala, 61 Bel Air and 34 Sedan now, never had a problem not being seen.
Chris

 

LOL!! Me, too! And yeah, I'm bored...

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Dave

 

r-pope there is at least a dozen led's packed on that 1157 case so there is pleanty of light whe the lights ate on and brakes applied....havent been stopped yet..........

 

HUMM I just read this whole thread too. Im running the old standby 39 teardrops in my roadster and noticed the other day that they ****ed as far as brightness. I was actually pondering a led replacement lens and im still pondering it. The last thing i wanna do is get pounded in the *** from someone . Ive built driven and followed a lot of hot rods with stock style lights and im here to tell ya they **** big time. Im going with another license frame with the license light and a 3rd brake light in it too. Safety first.. Traditional is good but safety is better.. And thats the bottom line.. Im working on my headlights right now and they are 28-29 buckets with halogen kits with the turn signals in them. Good headlights are a plus also..
Dave

 

I'm at work, read the whole thing. And for the money i've spent, disc brakes, a 5 speed, handmade interior, new gl***, LED taillights aren't a bad idea. And if you don't like it,

 

So where do all you "all traditional" guys get your 50 year old nuts and bolts?

 

Ya know, you guys should be able to figure out that posts about LED lights and Northstars are gong to get lots of negative responses on this site. IF it floats your boat do what you want but understand a ton of people on here will feel the need to point out "it's not traditional" and you should expect that.

And guys like you that make comments like this on this site amaze me. People get bent out of shape about so called 'traditional nazis" on a site that caters to that crowd and take it upon themselves to go against the grain and make a statement.

I have a tilt column in two of my cars and I know many on here are gonna call that out as lame and I don't care. I don't get bent out of shape or feel the need to argue about it.

Yea for you, you are so much more flexable.


Whatever...

 

Did you lose your sense of humor when you went traditional or has it always been missing?

 

And what you said was so original, so cutting edge, and so funny.

Look at it this way. The Rodding Roundtable is an awsome forum this post would have worked better on.

It was made on here, a place that tends to be filled with stuff about old mills and old stuff. That type of thing happens all the time and it aint that big of a deal, but somebody will always point out the HAMB is about traditional stuff and not things like LED tailights.

Anytime anyone makes a point about that on an item that is pretty much off base they get called a traditional nazi.

Then everytime some witty guy has to call out the traditional guys with a comment about how over traditional they are...and yet it's supposed to be a traditional forum

So no, it's not all that funny anymore.

Oh, and thanks once again for proving my point by hitting me with the clever anti traditional guy comment.

I have to go now, I gotta iron the cuffs on my jeans...

 

Didn't think it was all that funny. More like lighten up and smile a little.

 

I tried the led light bulbs in my 49 ford gl*** lenses with blue dots and went back to the halogen bulbs they were brighter
in plastic it seems the led work better in gl*** halogen plus the gl*** can take the heat plastic cant.
$7.95 each plus shipping http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=140061526289&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=004

 

Ya know, Toyota Camrys are really safe and get good gas milage, too. And if you put a big wing on back, and a coffee can tailpipe...wheeee!

 

Yeah, there are times when I begin to feel like a "broken record"; trying to help folks on a question that has been answered; hashed, re-hashed and beaten to death!
(then, there are those that don't READ very well!!

Ah well, ... YOU have a Cool Yule and we'll talk to you on the "flip side."
Dave

 

Safety and reliability - in that order. Yeah, I installed an LED third brake light on the c-dan. May not be traditional, but my family and friends often ride with me, and I'm looking at their safety and longevity.

With that in mind, have a safe Holiday Season.

RGV

 

Um, okay...anyhow Merry Christmas.

 

I work at Ron Francis and fill my pockets with Brite Bulbs every night before I go home. we also carry the LED bulbs that illuminate from the side as well. When I have room I put them in my pockets too. Not really.

Spike

 

I'm so safe I put a condom on every morning before I leave the house.

 

I gotta disagree with you. Seems like a great point. If you're an active, attentive, and even a little bit aggressive driver, you won't have an issue. I've been driving a 30+ year old car with 4 drum brakes and no power anything for nearly 8 years as a daily driver. Rain. sleet, snow, fog, etc...I've never had an issue stopping in a emergency when people slam on their disc brakes. Maybe I'm the exception to the rule. If that's the difference then we'll leave it at that.

I will however agree that drivers today generally don't have their head in the game.

 

I wear 3.............you can use em like Racecar tear-aways