Franklin Arrow LED exterior lights

[myarrow1]

Hi all. Just wondering if anyone has converted from bulb lights over to LED for tailights / clearance lights etc ? I'm thinking of doing mine as I have the wiring currently exposed at the moment. Is it fairly straight forward ??

[Mustang]

I left mine for these reasons, some of the new LED globes are not so good in an older reflectors unless you are in line with them. the old globes can be better from the sides.
But, I changed my interior globes to led.

Because the interior fittings are plastic I had to rewire the fitting for TWO positives ie, disconnect the negative that was original, then use a small piece of wire to jump across the negative wire to the positive, then solder an earth to the side of the globe. Complicated you bet.

Reason I,m stating this is to say go to a local dealer, & check you can return the globes if they don't work, some LED globes will only work one way in the external fittings also. Not saying LED is not the future, just that some are not plug & play.

PS: This thread will possibly be moved to "Techo stuff"

[myarrow1]

Hi Mustang. Thanks for your help. Yeh I've heard stories about LEDs not being as great as they seem, with regards to not functioning correctly........ My old lights aren't too bad, but my side markers are pretty average...... Might just leave them as they are

[greedy53]

i went with new lights, great now my break lights will start to flash if i have them on for a longer period, i have had so many people asking me where to get them good old ebay under $40.00

[myarrow1]

Thanks for the replies. Might stay with what ive got for now. Might just make sure ive got enough length on the wires before i reconnect them, so i wont have dramas down the track if i wanna swap them over

[planner]

MA1

I opted to change the blinker/brake lights to LED's, because the originals were stu??ed, and I had easy access with the rear wall ply removed.
I had planned to replace the side clearance lights as well, but they were earthed back through the cladding with no dedicated earth return wire (as were the rear lights). It was too big a job to run earths to the clearance lights so I left them alone, other than replaced lenses. I have been told that LED's don't light operating without really good earth connections.

Planner

[Mustang]

Aug 16, 2015 18:33:17 GMT 10 myarrow1 said:

Thanks for the replies. Might stay with what ive got for now. Might just make sure ive got enough length on the wires before i reconnect them, so i wont have dramas down the track if i wanna swap them over

While my back panels were (are) out I have run two more running lights to the rear with earth wires back to the steel chassis.

[myarrow1]

Decided to leave the tailights as they are. They are still pretty good and everything was working. Have just ordered new side markers (as they were sun damaged) from Caravans Plus, $10.50 each. Can't go wrong. Not fussed in converting over to LED. I figure that the original bulb type has worked well for the last 30 years or so, so I will stick with that ...

[doublechevron]

LED lights are good where they'll get wet ... as in theory they should be a sealed unit. The cheap ones everyone uses are crap IMO. If the sun is out you can't see them. You need to shop around and find the ones that can be seen in bright daylight (they are still cheap, but are the slimline ones that only a few $$$ more than the cheap boxy LED's that look like normal lights).

LED's will also no work on a lot of modern cars. They mess up the blown globes sensors as they dont' draw enough load for the sensors to realise a trailer is connected, so will cause all sort of bizzare issues ( eg: all the lights strobing etc).

I stick with proper old cars that can be readily repaired myself

seeya,
Shane L.