Skip to main content
Topic: LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car) (Read 12225 times) previous topic - next topic

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #60
I can has write-up? :hick:


 

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #62
Quote from: EricCoolCats;468007
Bite me, I've been busy. :mullet:


Alright, sneak peek...
https://www.coolcats.net/modifying/led.html

Great write up!  Thank you for sharing.
1988 Thunderbird TC, 5spd
Stinger 3" single exhaust, Cone Filter, Adjustable Cam Pulley, Schneider roller cam, Walbro 255 lph, AEM Wideband O2
'93 Mustang Cobra replica wheels on 235/50R17

'21 F150 Powerboost
'17 Husqvarna TX300

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #63
And here I had people calling me crazy for spending a few extra bucks for the few Sylvania bulbs that I've converted already.  I'd been leery of doing the exterior bulbs.  I think I may just do it.  I plan on staying halogen with the headlamps though.  Nothing I've seen for a 9004 housing has wowed me.  Relay Mod for me with regards to that and done.
-- 05 Mustang GT-Whipplecharged !!
--87 5.0 Trick Flow Heads & Intake - Custom Cam - Many other goodies...3100Lbs...Low12's!

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #64
Quote from: V8Demon;468023
And here I had people calling me crazy for spending a few extra bucks for the few Sylvania bulbs that I've converted already.

You did the right thing. ;)

For headlamps it's a toss-up. I just wanted to go full LED with a traditional 4x6 housing to prove it can be done in a modern way (replaceable bulb). Any other LED 4x6 lamp would work fine, I'm sure. The older cars are definitely easier for this.

Now the 1987-88 cars, that's a different story. Not sure how the light pattern would work with LED bulbs, to be honest. It would be a lot of experimentation with different bulbs and whatnot. It's a lot easier to stay with halogens in that respect and I don't blame anyone for keeping it that way.

Going with LEDs is sort of an expensive game right now. However, once someone figures out the magic combination and reports success, that's what everyone's going to want to do. I'm hoping that article is what spurs people on to try LEDs.

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #65
That's a great write up. Thanks for finding out what works in our cars.

As for 87-88 headlamps would this be a possible option?
https://lmr.com/item/DIO-9004HID/1987-93-mustang-diode-dynamics
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #66
From what I've seen with led kits, its pretty much a shoot. You want to go with a well known supplier to make sure you aren't getting cheap knock offs. Then you need to experiment to make sure they work. If the led light isn't pretty much exactly the same, its not going to light up the headlight right. Most cars the headlight housing uses refracted light, meaning the light is bounced around, coming from one particular place. If it doesn't, say the new led bulb is longer, or shorter, it won't refract light the same,giving you a bad beam. Think of it as a focused light. Moving distance and where the light is, is sorta like wearing someone else's glasses.

Basically, there is a lot of trial and error before you will find what "works". That's why Eric said right now its relatively expensive, until someone else does it.

Here's an ad for a particular company, however they show how many options and how to pick out leds, and explain why its so hard.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DDeaDrH0gXZk&ved=2ahUKEwjqpoDPyd7eAhUEFzQIHcNBCRY4ChC3AjADegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw27KPGcogNAJWfnQGsPkAm1
Quote from: jcassity
I honestly dont think you could exceed the cost of a new car buy installing new *stock* parts everywhere in your coug our tbird. Its just plain impossible. You could revamp the entire drivetrain/engine/suspenstion and still come out ahead.
Hooligans! 
1988 Crown Vic wagon. 120K California car. Wifes grocery getter. (junked)
1987 Ford Thunderbird LX. 5.0. s.o., sn-95 t-5 and an f-150 clutch. Driven daily and going strong.
1986 cougar.
lilsammywasapunkrocker@yahoo.com

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #67
Yeah.  I'm not comfortable playing trial and error with a 9004 bulb setup like what we have in the 87-88 cars.  I'll just do the relay mod on it and be done.  The HID kits seem to be as much of a  shoot as the LEDs....

Side note:  None of the auto parts stores by me have an LED signal flasher so I ordered one online.  In the meantime I swapped out all the 194 and 1156 bulbs that illuminate the exterior of the car to LED.  I did make sure to install red LED bulbs in the tail lamp housing where necessary.  The 194 LED bulbs are brighter than the incandescent 1157's with the tail lamps on....


Also:  At what point did the lamp harnesses change on these cars? The reason I ask is simple.  With regards to exterior illumination my model year 1987 vehicle uses bulbs referenced by the charts for the 83-86 cars.  I.E everything that SHOULD be a 2458/3157 is in fact an 1157 bulb on my car.  Considering that the bulb sockets are COMPLETELY different and the harnesses appear unmolested I'm guessing they had some leftover stuff in the parts bin.  Actual build date on my car:  3/17/1987 (Yes; St Patty's Day.  I'm sure liquid lunch was involved and probably explains a great many things).
-- 05 Mustang GT-Whipplecharged !!
--87 5.0 Trick Flow Heads & Intake - Custom Cam - Many other goodies...3100Lbs...Low12's!

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #68
Alright, cool, let us know how everything works with the flashers and whatnot.

I have never owned an '87, only a few '88s, and they all had the 3157 taillight bulbs. So you might be correct...a mix of the old and new harnesses probably was the norm for 1987. Now that I think of it, the taillight socket configuration between 1986 and 1987 models were the same, on both the Cougar and T-Bird. It would make sense that the old harnesses were mixed in with the new body style. That's my guess...

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #69
Quote from: thunderjet302;468033
That's a great write up. Thanks for finding out what works in our cars.

As for 87-88 headlamps would this be a possible option?
https://lmr.com/item/DIO-9004HID/1987-93-mustang-diode-dynamics

It's an option, but the light scatter would be similar to using HID bulbs in our housings. The best way to do it is projectors. Brian Larkin has done it on his car, and while it looks a little out of place, it works pretty  well for a projector behind the fluted lens.
It's Gumby's fault.

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #70
Quote from: Tbird232ci;468064
It's an option, but the light scatter would be similar to using HID bulbs in our housings. The best way to do it is projectors. Brian Larkin has done it on his car, and while it looks a little out of place, it works pretty  well for a projector behind the fluted lens.
Seek has done that too.

Projectors are the only 'good' way to do it as HIDs and LEDs will never match the light source location as the original halogen bulb and will put out wonky light patterns. Have a link for Brian Larkin's project? I found a guy who made his own polycarbonate housings like Seek, but he was dead to the world when I looked him up.

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #71
Quote from: Tbird232ci;468064
It's an option, but the light scatter would be similar to using HID bulbs in our housings. The best way to do it is projectors. Brian Larkin has done it on his car, and while it looks a little out of place, it works pretty  well for a projector behind the fluted lens.

I really hate that light scatter when people put HID bulbs in housings. Blinds the shiznit out of everyone on the road. Best bet in our case is to stick with the stock style bulbs, if you don't want to modify the light housings.

Actually people who put LED/HID bulbs on their POS cars drove me to put an Autodim mirror in my Thunderbird. So I'm not blinded from behind at night.
88 Thunderbird LX: 306, Edelbrock Performer heads, Comp 266HR cam, Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, bunch of other stuff.

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #72
Quote from: JeremyB;468070
Seek has done that too.

Projectors are the only 'good' way to do it as HIDs and LEDs will never match the light source location as the original halogen bulb and will put out wonky light patterns. Have a link for Brian Larkin's project? I found a guy who made his own polycarbonate housings like Seek, but he was dead to the world when I looked him up.

I'll have to dig through Facebook, or see if I can get him to post about it here. He is a member of the forum here but not very active. Essentially, he pulled the lens off of the headlight, used a retrofit projector and put it back together. The cutoff isn't too bad and the light output is leaps and bounds over what we have with a normal 9004 light.
It's Gumby's fault.

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #73
Oh look!

Sylvania has changed.suppliers for the LED bulbs....  They also look drastically different!

X

Older bulbs are made in Italy.  It appears the current ones are now being made in Taiwan.  I'm gonna do an 1157 comparison between the two in the tail lamps...
-- 05 Mustang GT-Whipplecharged !!
--87 5.0 Trick Flow Heads & Intake - Custom Cam - Many other goodies...3100Lbs...Low12's!

LED Bulb Conversion (Whole Car)

Reply #74
Quote from: JeremyB;468070
Seek has done that too.

Projectors are the only 'good' way to do it as HIDs and LEDs will never match the light source location as the original halogen bulb and will put out wonky light patterns. Have a link for Brian Larkin's project? I found a guy who made his own polycarbonate housings like Seek, but he was dead to the world when I looked him up.


My ears are burning.

Yeah, the projectors are still working great today. After a hiatus of nearly 5 years, about to resume tinkering on projects that were long put on hold. Just today finished sealing my modified tail lights, after having cut them open years back for the LED project. Will be nice to not worry about water getting into the clean lights in any rain or even washing the car...

Dropping bulbs into the reflector housings will not do anything productive. I have a thread over on f150forum where I spent a week doing testing for people, to try to demonstrate why such mods are useless. You get less light on the road, and if you aim them down, you just flood the first few feet in front of the vehicle. You get no light down the road for driving anywhere close to highway speeds - somewhat like most foglights, of which on most vehicles don't normally do anything productive, even in fog. Exception - I did try a few HID products in my 2013 Volt's halogen projectors, and found one product that keeps the same beam characteristics and cutoff, but with better output. It's not common to find a good drop in bulb that works in a factory halogen projector.

https://www.f150forum.com/f83/drop-replacement-light-sources-hid-led-comparisons-other-info-318095/

Hopefully soon I can start my single piece headlight assembly project, now that I have an AC Tig welder and have been practicing on 1/16" aluminum during 2018. Some prototyping has already been completed. The large headlight area on these cars will allow a lot of aluminum/heatsinking. Project coming soon with 5x XHP70.2 per side on lowbeam alone, through projector optics, along with more XHP70.2 in the cornering lamps and fog lights. Making the lenses will be the most difficult part, but my new headlights will also not have the beam width of the Acura TL projectors.
1988 Thunderbird Sport