Exterior lighting maintenance, resto & upgrade

[slantsixdan]

I checked on the Night Hawk sealed beam and it says it does not apply to my 67 Cuda

Wrong. It fits and works fine -- H6024NH, go ahead and get it. Who are you gonna believe, some dumbcluck catalogue programmed by someone who probably drove an '87 Hyundai Excel to work? Or a Mopar-headed lighting freak?

If using the led equivalent to the 194 as "cluster gauge lighting" (WLED-CWHP6) from Superbrightleds and what you suggest (2886X) and the price is the same. Wouldn't it be better to use the LED to reduce heat and power consumption? Less power thru original wiring and the same results, is a good thing...right?

It would be if you can get the same results, but that's a big "if". LEDs produce a narrow beam of light. Filament bulbs produce a sphere of light (about the same amount of light headed off in every direction at once, except where blocked by the bulb base). Using LEDs for instrument cluster lighting doesn't always work very well; you tend to get bright spots and dark shadows -- unlit areas. The cluster illumination is pretty even with no bright spots and shadows when you use filament bulbs, because the light bounces around behind the gauges (that's why the housing is painted white inside!). Give it a try if you like, though; it's certainly less safety-critical than using "LED bulbs" in the car's exterior lighting. I think if I wanted to upgrade the instrument panel lights, I'd skip the "LED bulbs" and use this nifty "glow wire" setup instead.

absolutely epic post. thanks so much.

Y'welcome; here to serve!

I've been dealing with VERY dim tail/brake lights on my '72 Swinger.

It's kind of endemic to the '71-'73 Darts; the lights are small and not very efficient.

Cleaned the lenses and replaced the bulbs... still dim. Guess I'll try your tip and clean up the sockets and the housing, as well as run a new ground wire.

That'll all help, and also use Stabilant-22 on all the connections between the headlight switch and the taillamps (including the headlight switch connector plug). Use those special Honda bulbs I reference.

Dan, do you have this in plain text? Computer old...

Lemme see what I can do; which part of it doesn't show up for you? The links, or??

 

[slantsixdan]

-.-

 

[slantsixdan]

Hey, Dan,
Many years later, what are your thoughts now on LEDs?

Good question. Please see my detailed discussion of the matter here. Nutshell version: there's a mountain of unsafe garbage on the market, but there are (finally) the first few legitimate retrofits: these to replace 1034 or 1157 in red brake/tail lights, and these to replace 1076, 1141, or 1156 in reversing (back-up) lights.

If you use these in your brake/tail lights, you will need to swap in this turn signal flasher.

 

[72BBSwinger]

Awesome Dan on the tails! Found some Hella H4's too.