I swapped in a pair of Sylvania LEDs into my tail lamp sockets. They should have been much brighter than the incandescent originals, but they were about 10 - 20% dimmer. I took them back and bought the "Super Bright" versions - they improved to about 5 - 10% dimmer.

Can anyone provide a good electrical explanation? Nothing else was modified or moved during the swap and I didn't (yet) clean the contact points because I assumed if they were good enough for the regular bulbs, they were good enough for the LEDs. I am already running LEDs on the side marker lamps, but have never done a side-by-side comparison (i.e. they came with the truck) I guess I'll head out and clean them whilst I wait for someone's wisdom...

 

Did you replace them with white or red leds? Led light in the spectrum is not the same as a incandescent It is a pure white and does not show up as well through colored lenses. Match bulb color to lens color

 

Thanks for the question / suggestion, 79 ! I figured out the issue... the direction of the two LED bulbs is different than the incandescent bulb. Since the inside of the lens housing has no reflective surface, the LEDs were not forcing light through the lens like the legacy bulb. A LED with an "end cap" element (like the kind I have in my pinball machines) should perform better, I assume. For reference, from left to right: a "super" LED, standard LED and legacy bulb.



In the end, I went with 79's suggestion, a red regular LED like the one in the middle. It is brighter than the white "super", but still not quite as bright as the incandescent - but it draws less amperage on the wiring and hopefully will give me fewer issues in the long run.

 

If you want some really bright LED bulbs try 2x Red 30W 1157 BAY15D P21/5W Projector LED Brake Tail Stop Light Bulb DC12V-24V | eBay


I run these and I believe a few others do as well. You will not be disappointed.

 

My rigs still have incandescent bulbs so I lined the insides of the housing with HVAC duct and seam sealing foil tape to provide reflectivity.

Ultra low-buck and it works great.

 

Another couple options:

1. Open your light housings and paint the insides with a reflective or silver paint.

2. Open the housings and build reflectors out of some aluminum.

Those Sylvanias work very well in my Tacoma because it has factory reflectors. The physically yellow colored COB type LEDs are much brighter than previous styles of LED. The COBs are what Rigid Industries, Streamlight, and the other high end LED lighting companies are using.

 

I'll look again at the housings. When I looked the first time, it didn't seem like a serviceable part. The lights corvair62 recommend have a beam that shoots out directly toward the lens, so I assume they are as he says.

I appreciate everyone's experience and I'm not trying to blind the person driving behind my truck as much as I was trying to learn why I didn't get the improvement I thought an LED would bring. The brightness is similar to what I started with and I think I have a set of bulbs that work, although I wish I would have known about the lights on EBay before I bought these. I may open the housings and like the concept of making the inside a little more reflective - but mainly hope anyone else considering LED taillights picks up some good information.

 

I tried those same super led bulbs by Sylvania, could barely see them and there was zero difference in brightness between running and brake.

Wife Cindy drives the truck nearly every day, don't need some jamoke plowing into the rear of the truck and us being on the hook because they couldn't see her brake lights... Returned them an hour later.

Back to standard incan bulbs for me, can buy a whole glovebox full of 'em for the money they get for those super leds...

 

Can you tell me approx how long they are, they look long in the pictures and on my earlier model truck I don't know if I can get the lens back on?

 

I put the Sylvania LED bulbs in my 74 and they are much brighter than the old bulbs, both as running lights and brake lights. You can see them at about 18 seconds in this video:

 

Just the tail light, not the brake. The brake lights up quite well.

For overall brightness, there are few newer vehicles that I've seen with brighter, but these are definitely brighter.
And the over all length was a little under 2 1/4"

 

When I was researching LEDs, I found these at West Coast Cougar.

My main concern was that there be a distinct change in brightness when the brake lights came on and these had that in spades. Then I decided that incandescent 1157s had gotten the truck down the road for 43 years and would probably continue to do so for many more years so I gave up the search. What I'd really like is a 3rd brake light that fits my after market canopy nicely.

Michael

 

I also am hesitant to try LEDs, as most of them tend to create "hot spots," where there is just too much light glaring.
One place I actually would consider using them is in the back-up lamps. I'll bet they would make a noticeable difference when backing up at night.

 

Have read on other forums about switching LED bulbs that are dual-color so that depending what side of the LED gets current, a different color lights up. They make them in red/white, and one guy mentioned changing his sockets to accommodate those bulbs - he replaced his back-up lights' single filament bulb sockets to those used for dual-filament bulbs like our running/brake 1157s. He ran a jumper from his brake lights to the red LED side of the sockets, so that when he hit his brakes his back-up lights also lit up red, effectively increasing the size of his brake lights. His only complaint was that if he hit the brakes while in reverse the resultant light was pink. Think they call them switchback or bi-color LED? Have not tried this but it sounded interesting.

Great tip on using the AC tape to make the socket more reflective!!!

 

Tahnks. Here's the HVAC foil tape mod in use