65 dart can I get Led lights for it?
- Thread starter Robbase67
- Start date
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,
Thanx
I personally cant vouch for their stuff yet, but I plan to give them a try when I get to that step on my project. I found cheaper options, but this seems to be a more legit company than the Chiwanese e-bay crap.
pauly v.100
Well-Known Member
I gutted the inside of my housing and slightly trimmed a pair of oval semi trailr lights to fit inside the housing. Might be an option for you
slantsixdan
=..=
Careful, this is life-safety equipment you're working with. It has to work right, not just light up. Most of the "LED bulbs" on the market (including everything SuperBright sells) are unsafe junk that lights up but doesn't work properly (right amounts of light through the right range of angles for your car's lights to convey their message to other drivers). Please see my detailed discussion of the matter here .
Clean the front park/turn and rear brake/tail/turn lamp lenses in hot soapy water. If the reflectors are at all dull or peeling, stuff wads of masking tape in the bulb holes (or remove the sockets if they're the removable type), clean the reflectors with alcohol, then spray them with readily available "chrome" spray paint, which is practically ideal for the task.
Then, Put these in the brake/tail lights and these in the back-up lights. You will need to install this turn signal flasher (2-prong like original, attach its ground wire conveniently nearby). There is no LED bulb that will work effectively and safely in the type of front turn signal lamps you have on your Dart.
LED headlamps: Yep, you can have them. Here again, there's a ton of unsafe junk on the market, but you've got a variety of legitimate options, too. One particular kind of junk bears mention so you know to steer clear of it, that is the "LED bulb conversions" now flooding the market claiming to convert halogen headlamps. They are not a legitimate, safe, effective, or legal product. The failure is at the concept level, not the implementation level. These are a fraudulent scam. Not capable of producing even a fraction of the amount of light produced by the filament bulb they supposedly replace, let alone producing it in the right pattern for the lamp's optics to work.
But there's a growing number of engineered LED headlamps on the market -- they range in quality and performance from pathetic to excellent. The 701C from Peterson is good (also rebranded as Sylvania Zevo). The Truck-Lite unit is good (also rebranded as GE and as Philips). By a big, big margin the king daddy of them all is the 8700 Evolution 2 from JW Speaker in chrome or in black. But it's expensive and some people don't like its looks, so you have to decide that for yourself.
The best part: all these good LED headlamps I just linked are made in America!
Clean the front park/turn and rear brake/tail/turn lamp lenses in hot soapy water. If the reflectors are at all dull or peeling, stuff wads of masking tape in the bulb holes (or remove the sockets if they're the removable type), clean the reflectors with alcohol, then spray them with readily available "chrome" spray paint, which is practically ideal for the task.
Then, Put these in the brake/tail lights and these in the back-up lights. You will need to install this turn signal flasher (2-prong like original, attach its ground wire conveniently nearby). There is no LED bulb that will work effectively and safely in the type of front turn signal lamps you have on your Dart.
LED headlamps: Yep, you can have them. Here again, there's a ton of unsafe junk on the market, but you've got a variety of legitimate options, too. One particular kind of junk bears mention so you know to steer clear of it, that is the "LED bulb conversions" now flooding the market claiming to convert halogen headlamps. They are not a legitimate, safe, effective, or legal product. The failure is at the concept level, not the implementation level. These are a fraudulent scam. Not capable of producing even a fraction of the amount of light produced by the filament bulb they supposedly replace, let alone producing it in the right pattern for the lamp's optics to work.
But there's a growing number of engineered LED headlamps on the market -- they range in quality and performance from pathetic to excellent. The 701C from Peterson is good (also rebranded as Sylvania Zevo). The Truck-Lite unit is good (also rebranded as GE and as Philips). By a big, big margin the king daddy of them all is the 8700 Evolution 2 from JW Speaker in chrome or in black. But it's expensive and some people don't like its looks, so you have to decide that for yourself.
The best part: all these good LED headlamps I just linked are made in America!
AJ/FormS
68 Formua-S fastback clone 367/A833/GVod/3.55s
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I mostly hate leds. They are bright to look at, but they have no penetration power. Put a little distance between your eye and the led, and it grows dim fast. A little fog, dust, or rain and nobody my age knows you're even there!
Guys used to retrofit them to their superbikes. When they would call to book an appointment for a safety check, I would ask if any lites were not stock, and if not then were they DOT approved? If the caller didn't know, then I would explain that all lighting equipment in my province had to be DOT approved, in order to pass safety. We put a lotta bikes back to stock. Some of those bikers put the LEDs back on after they got the certificate, but that was for the cops to deal with. I did my part.
Before you accuse me of being a whatever, consider that, our province can fine me up to $7000. for letting things slide, and at the same time, they can fine my employer Double. And they can pull our liscence to do safetys. And a good percentage of our work came from doing this type of work, so it was not something my boss wanted to lose. I enjoyed ripping those LEDs off,lol. Ok now you can flame me,lol
Guys used to retrofit them to their superbikes. When they would call to book an appointment for a safety check, I would ask if any lites were not stock, and if not then were they DOT approved? If the caller didn't know, then I would explain that all lighting equipment in my province had to be DOT approved, in order to pass safety. We put a lotta bikes back to stock. Some of those bikers put the LEDs back on after they got the certificate, but that was for the cops to deal with. I did my part.
Before you accuse me of being a whatever, consider that, our province can fine me up to $7000. for letting things slide, and at the same time, they can fine my employer Double. And they can pull our liscence to do safetys. And a good percentage of our work came from doing this type of work, so it was not something my boss wanted to lose. I enjoyed ripping those LEDs off,lol. Ok now you can flame me,lol
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slantsixdan
=..=
AJ/FormS is saying the same thing I did: it's not enough to put in something that lights up, it has to work RIGHT. The LED bulbs I linked do not have any of the negative characteristics he describes, because they work right. And the linked LED headlamps are fully compliant with Federal (and Canada) Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 for street-legal use in all states and provinces.
It really, really matters that you do this kind of upgrade right.
It really, really matters that you do this kind of upgrade right.
I notice the bulbs you linked to were red. Doesn't this cause a problem with a red bulb behind a red lens?
66Dvert
Working on my custom car parts again!
yes to both of those questions according to SlantSsixdan. I did a Led conversion on my 66 and with his help with numbers and directions was able to get the correct lumen reading in all the ranges he said I'd need. (THANKS Again Dan) I would "assume" that with enough playing around that the 65''s could be done too. It might not make a good backup light, but then again it might work here is mine
Just the tails please! yeah I wanted all 4 to be stop/turn and tail lights
here is the WOA section of the lights
yeah they do light up the garage and they are very visible in the summer sun too!
Absolutely not. The red lens is actually a filter that filters out the other colors and allows red to pass. An incandescent lamp throws out a broad spectrum of colors including red. A white LED pretty much throws out white. Putting it behind a red Lens basically causes not much light to pass through. See the picture in the next post after yours.
slantsixdan
=..=
The rules for lens colour/LED colour used to be simple: red LED behind red lens is YES (= red light), white LED behind red lens is NO (=dim brownish-pink light). The situation is more complicated now; we have different kinds of white LEDs, some of which produce enough red and/or amber light to be successfully used behind a red or amber lens, and there are some LED vehicle lights on the market that use that strategy. But this is all theoretical; the practical answer to this specific question at hand is to use the bulbs as linked: red ones behind a red lens, white ones behind a white lens.
It is a big damn shame there's no white or amber 1157 version of those particular Philips LED bulbs, because they are the only ones that work effectively/safely with fresnel optics -- that's the kind that has a round "bullseye" in the middle and concentric rings around that, used in a lot of old car lights including the '63-'66 Dart and Valiant front park/turn lights.
The custom LED tails built by 66DVert are documented here…if you read that thread, you'll see there's a lot to think about beyond just "Yep, it lights up red". The previously-linked Philips LED bulbs work perfectly in any A-body brake/tail light as a direct drop-in. You don't get the cool perimeter-ring taillight effect of 66DVert's custom work, but you also get off a lot easier in terms of cost and effort.
It is a big damn shame there's no white or amber 1157 version of those particular Philips LED bulbs, because they are the only ones that work effectively/safely with fresnel optics -- that's the kind that has a round "bullseye" in the middle and concentric rings around that, used in a lot of old car lights including the '63-'66 Dart and Valiant front park/turn lights.
The custom LED tails built by 66DVert are documented here…if you read that thread, you'll see there's a lot to think about beyond just "Yep, it lights up red". The previously-linked Philips LED bulbs work perfectly in any A-body brake/tail light as a direct drop-in. You don't get the cool perimeter-ring taillight effect of 66DVert's custom work, but you also get off a lot easier in terms of cost and effort.
slantsixdan
=..=
(…by the way, I just noticed the '65 Dart front bumper on that '63-'64 Dart front clip. Interesting, don't think I've seen that combination before.)
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