Led stop and tail lights

[indigochim]

s p a c e m a n said:

Rather than sticking bulbs in a 30 year old tail light can anyone think of something else newer and reasonably cheap that might fit in the hole? I was just looking at the back of one of those new fiat 500s and have an unused tube of sikaflex in my boot

I bought some of these and some spare lamp units with the intention of fitting the "angel eyes" behind the lenses to give a ring light. They do multiple sizes and you could fit them inside each other to form rear and brake lights. Unortunately the way the metal part of the unit is crimped to the plastic lens you can't separate them in a none destructive way. I did grind off one of the amber lenses as they're cheapest but by that stage I'd fallen out with the idea and they didn't fit nicely without even more modification.

Edited by indigochim on Tuesday 15th September 21:49

[s p a c e m a n]

Yeah I keep toying with the idea of just buying the led lights from carbuilder or eBay and make the afterburner lights, but I figured that if I'm making something I might as well make something different. I'm now eyeing up those union jack mini tail lights, think that I'm just trying to find ways to entertain myself over the winter months

[Sir Paolo]

I bought some 20Twenty led bulbs from ABD (Auto Bulbs Direct) for the rear brake/tail lights on my ‘98 Chim with the later 4 light (non Fiesta) set up a few years back.

I was happy with the brightness and the brake light reaction speed was also a big improvement over the standard bulbs.

However, I wasn’t so happy with the fairly loose fitting in the bulb holder.
I wasn’t too concerned as everything seemed to work ok, until I removed one bulb in an effort to clean inside the lens.
The bulb was at an odd angle in the holder, so I carefully removed it, and tried to reinstall it, but this just made it looser.

After much head scratching, I finally noticed that the offset bayonet pins on the bulbs were being pushed inside the metal bulb case each time the bulb was inserted!
This was of course to the poor quality of the metal casing.

To prove the point, I tried reinserting the old bulbs, and even after numerous times, there was no problem, the bulbs remained secure and worked- whereas the ABD bulbs got looser and failed.

I complained to ABD, but as they were out of warranty they said there was nothing they could do.
Still, it’s a quality issue, (and these weren’t cheap ones either) not one of wear and tear.

Buyer beware!