Has anyone tried the LED tail light replacements that they sell. I was wondering how they worked since they look directional and the tail lights on the expy's were designed to reflect.

Mark
'99 XLT 4x4 5.4 3.73's

 

Are you talking about the bulb replacements? Or a whole tail light assembly?

 

I just added red leds for my p/n 3156's in my taillights on my Expy, they seem darker and just as bright if not brighter, the only thing is now the blink rate is FASTER, not sure if this means less voltage draw or more, kinda like when your boat trailer is hooked up, the lights blink faster, looks good though, IMHO.

Thinking about adding them in tag lights, third brake light too.
Anyone else use these?

 

I am talking about just the bulb replacement.

Mark

 

I've heard that they don't add as much light output as a regular bulb, but as Todz says they do. I'm not sure if he go the wide or narrow light pattern ones or not. But i don't think they would light up the whole tail light assembly like a reg. bulb would. But there fairley cheap, so I would just try them.

 

I had some narrow ones laying in my tool box from a previous car, I also had the wide pattern ones already ordered. Perhaps I will do some pics of all three (o/e, narrow leds, wide leds) bulbs at night for a demo.

As you can see, not ALL leds are equal...

 

I have the multi-LED bulbs in the F350. They are brighter than the stock bulbs. They require a heavy duty flasher for the turnsignals to work right. I think the flasher is a 552 if I remember correctly. The heavy duty flasher will probably fix your nervous flashing problem. For your trailer lights, you may want to try a power module for the trailer harness, its like a relay and uses your truck lights only for control, the power comes off your truck battery so your trailer lights dont overload the trucks lighting system. If you go to any place that sells Reese/DrawTite towing products, the module is callled a Modulite and also functions as a 3wire to 2wire adapter if you need that feature.

 

Any pics?

 

I put the LED bulbs in my 94 Bronco, and it seemed like they weren't that bright. But the color was a real rich red, looked good if they were brighter, and didn't light up the whole tail light, just a small circle with medium lighting around the taillight.

 

Ok, so heres is the story:
First thing is they make the flash rate much faster, that in it self would have been ok but...

Since these LEDS dont shine in all directions, MAINLY straight out, they do not utilize the reflector part of the light housing, when your filament bulb shines, the light goes out in all directions causing a lot of it to REFLECT off of the housing, not so with LEDS, thus, it makes the housing look not as well lit which it isnt. They ARE much RED'ER but their is NOT as much lighy filling the housing. One day they may make a LED that radiates in all directions but not yet...

 

I must have lucked out cause the LED lights I have light the whole tailight lens just fine at night. During the day you see more of a bright spot in the lens than lighting the whole lens, but I dont run my taillights during the day much anyways...

Those LED bulbs plus the 50 watt backup bulbs and hitch reciever 3rd brake light I put in were a big improvement in night visibility.

 

I use single LED bulbs in my 50 F-1's tail/brake lights and have serious problems with daytime visibility (And it's scary when the guy behind you can't see your brake lights in the day). The LED bulbs were an improvement on the filament bulbs, but haven't solved the problem.

The only LED assembly I've seen work was on the TRUCKS TV show, and they were used on a chevy. The product was a panel full of LED lights that plugged in using the stock tail/brake socket. The panels sat in the tail light housing and were very bright when installed, even with bright shop lighting. I've been searching for a similar product to put in my round tail light assemblies (4" diameter) but haven't located anything yet.

 

Yeah I saw that on Trucks, I was wanting to get one of those for my Bronco, but I don't know who makes them?
TodzY2KExpy- yeah i know about the reflection, and the fact that they are a richer red is because the LED's are red, red on red VS. white through red!

 

I didnt see that Trucks episode. How big were the panels? Mine have a small round surface like a panel with a bunch of LED's arranged in concentric circles. I didnt count how many LED's were in there but there were a few of them probly more than 10 but less than 20.

 

The panel they showed on that episode was rectangular and filled the tail light housing. I don't know how many lights were on the pannel, but there were atleast three or four columns of lights. Their reason for using the panel was to illuminate the whole tail light, instead of just the end with the light socket. I can't remember the year of the truck they were working on, but the tail light housing was a tall rectangle.

Hope that helps...Where did you get your LED panel, SoCal?