I found, and purchased, some really bright LED 1157 replacements.
Being chi-com manufacture I expected trouble. But they were nice and bright.
I stopped getting dirty looks and jerks who pulled up and told me that I had no brake lights.
For a while anyways.
These LEDs are designed for maximum output. Which means that any voltage spike burns them out.
14V is good.
14.5V is great.
14.6V and they blow...

About the same time that I purchased those LEDs I also picked up a bunch of another type of LED replacements. Not quite as bright but better than the old yellow incandecent.
But I "need more power"!
So this is my modification.
I was digging throught my shed and picked out all of the '67 XR-7 bits and pieces that I've stashed for 30 years. I soold that baby several years ago and just hadn't cleaned house.
I looked at the tail lights and realized thatthe bulb holders are a searate unit.

67-68 Cougar, T-Bird, and maybe others.

I pulled out a set of truck tailight housings.
After an application of 1-1/8" holesaw I had a second hole.
Then I poped the Cougar light fixture into place and bent the tabs over.

Two lights.

Now I have two LED bulbs and too much light so I sprayed a coat of red lens paint.
There is room for another bulb too. And I have all 6 of the Cougar fixtures and a ready supply of
more.

 

Now that's really clever. Have done a few things for better tail lights, but never even thought of adding a second socket!
Your reflector looks like it has a better-than-most coating of white paint too. Is that the case, or just a trick of the light and the picture? I always coat mine with flat white paint with high titanium dioxide content listed on the label when I can. For me it's worked better than some of the other alternatives at evening out the reflections.
All of my Fords got short shrift when it came to the factory coating. Some decent silver coating to the (aluminum is it?) but just a spattering of white paint.

Back to your LED's, what does this do to the loss from voltage spikes? Are the other bulbs you have just less sensitive to that?

Good luck. Would like to see pics of how they work at night sometime.

Thanks

Paul

 

Same tail lamp assy's: 1967 Econoline except pickup, 1967/72 Stylesides, 1967/77 Bronco, 1969/74 Econoline.

 

Yep, but they always seemed to be very inconsistent in how the white was applied. One of mine in the '71 seemed to be about half covered, while the other barely had any at all. Just a splattering (literally) that covered maybe 1/4 of the reflector.
Just my luck of the draw I guess, as I have seen some that were fully coated, like Millam's appear to be.

Paul

 

I modified my modification to look and work better. I designed and made a tool to flange the metal into an almost exact copy of the original. Simple **** actually.
Now I have three lights rather than two.
One of the extras is a tail/turn wired into the tail/turn circuit and the other is brake wired appropriately.

I'll try to remember to get pictures of them in action at night as per request.
But this modification, seems to me, is most important during the day. People are just too used to modern taillight brightness and seem that they cannot see older light levels.
I've had jigs pull up next to me and yell that I have no brake lights. A couple of times I pulled over and checked. Yep. They work just fine. More likely that the jig just wasn't paying attention.

 

I painted the inside of my lights with bright silver paint and that helped a bunch, The flare side taillights were just black inside.

I also read where someone had lined the inside of the housing with shiny aluminum foil to improve the light quality. They used spray glue to coat the foil, cutting strips to be able to work it into the housing without a bunch of wrinkles.

But I really like the additional sockets. Using LEDs should not overload the circuit or blow fuses and it may have enough current draw for the flasher to work OK.

 

The bright silver paint worked out decently in my tests too. I tried just silver gloss, and "aluminum" colored paint. Worked decently and was definitely better than my almost bare housing.
I used reflective tape in one test too, as well as just the shiny "chrome tape" in one. The chrome tape was just ok and the silver paint was better than both by a small margin.
The best results for me in the old housings at least were what the factory used (when they used it!) and that was with white paint.
The higher the content of titanium-dioxide (a large part of white pigment) the more reflective for our purposes here. And according to reports, a flat paint is better than a shiny one in making the light bounce around the housing in a more controlled manner. Or something like that.
But even the shiny stuff I used ("Appliance White" if I remember) in the first tests was notably better than all the others.

The original white coatings in the old housings I've seen seems to be either flat, or at the most a satin finish. The problem with all of my trucks has always been that there was just barely even a spritz of the coating over a small percentage of the reflector area. Whereas better quality housings seemed to be fully coated. I mentioned previously how Millam's housings look like they have a really nice almost full coat. Looks more satin than flat, whereas my old ones were always a flat color.
So all my tail light paints are now flat white with the titanium-dioxide listed right on the label. I forget the part number, but can get it if anyone wants to try it for their lights. Works really well and gives a nice even spread of red light through the lens.
Probably not as good as multiple bulbs though!

Paul

 

By any chance have you tried any of the reflective or luminescent paints? Maybe the clear reflective paint over a white base would be an option or even the highway stripping paints. I may look around for some to try. I'll post the results if that happens.

 

That would be great. More experimenting is always good!
That's why we have forums. Because there's strength (and more answers available) in numbers!
More crap too of course, but you takes the good with the bad, and learn to read between the lines hopefully.

I have not tried any of those. Once I settled on the flat white I was sold and thought I'd done all I could.
Seeing some modern housings though, with their good performance and no coating at all (just shiny metal) should have clued me in that there could still be better mousetraps out there.

Paul

 

On the flare side lights the 80-86 were painted white inside but don't know if gloss or flat but could dig out 1 of my old factory lights.

You cant get factory lights any more and the Grote replacements are not painted white, just the black housing.
I used silver alum. duct tape inside my replacement lights. I know of someone else that painted his white but do not know how the 2 compare to each other or with out any work we did, tape or paint.
We also don't have the room for an extra socket and we did not use LED bulbs because of the way the sockets are installed and the bulbs made.


I want to do the F O R D letters in reflective white tape for night driving but the shop I checked with started at $200 to rich for my blood!

I am on different forums and came across this on LED tail lights for non-Ford cars.
At the end I think there is a company that will make a LED light board that plugs into your socket and fills the whole light assy.
70 Javelin/AMX LED tail lights. - The AMC Forum - Page 1
Dave ----

 

I used the shiny silver duct sealing tape in one of my tests in the standard tail lights and the tape was better than just the bare metal housing. But the paint was better still.
The different shapes of the housings/reflectors could possibly skew those results I suppose. Never tested it on the Flarside stuff. But the bottom line is really, if they work better now than before, it's a success!

I think a reflective F O R D would look cool. At least in the smaller letters versions. The big ones like on your tailgate might be too much.
Would not want to be the one coming up on that tailgate at night!

Paul

 

I spent some time trying a few mods this weekend. I started with my previously silver painted housings. I then lined the inside with aluminum foil and lastly painted them with flat white Rustoleum. I took some pics of each version, and honestly, I can't tell the difference. On the flare side lights, it would take some major modifications to add a second socket. If I were to go that far, I think I would try closing in the backup light and adding some small LEDs to the upper area of the housing. That could almost double the lighted area.

Silver paint


Foil lined


White

 

Thanks for doing that. They all look decent, but at least as far as the pics are concerned, they do each look slightly different. Just barely, but there.
The original actually looks pretty good, but with a bit more highlight to the center rings.
The foil looks just a tiny bit "dimmer" if you will.
I actually like the white the best, in the pictures. Slightly more even, with less boldness to the center rings.

But like you said, they all look pretty good. Definitely the different shape of the reflectors, and possibly the condition/age of the lenses could make a difference in results.

Good test.

Paul

 

I am finally getting around to posting a picture of the "two red LED" modification. As you can see it is a semi-lit parking lot and the lights are very bright.
I tried white LED "bulbs" but they washed out the red lens and looked very light orange.
I'll be going to my favorite scrap yard this week to pick up some more wiring harness so that I can try the 3 "bulb" modifications.
Yes on the painting using flat white. I tried the "bright silver" and aluminum paints. I found that they lost intensity.
Then I tried using some very mirror-like AC duct tape. I couldn't get the stuff to lay down nice and flat. So I just removed it.
Then I cleaned the housing with steel-wool and rubbing alcohol. Then I sprayed them with a high TiO2 content flat white paint.
I have a better idea for these but I'm still in the engineering phase for the proof-of-concept phase.
I'll get back to y'all on this soon. Hopefully soon...

 

Thanks for the up date and keep us posted
Dave ----