There is currently a post on hotrod safety. LED tail lights have been mentioned as a good safety feature. They may be for the driver. I might be the only one here that hates them. Particularly at night when they are on 4WD at eye level, when you are behind them and they have their indicator on and their foot on the brake. It takes a while to be able to see again. Some are so bright that it makes it hard to drive behind. In Australia our design rules had a maximum wattage for tail lights to avoid this problem. As LED are low watts but some as bright as a strobe light this rule is invalid. So please if you are going to install LED Taillights that also double as runway lighting, think about the person behind you. Thanks, end of rant. Steve
I'm thinking of installing them one day in my '32 5W. They will be mounted under the car facing the pavement with the intent of creating a bright glow so the cars behind me can notice the strangeness and hopefully my car, especially on a rainy night get occasionally here on the "wet coast"...
Well, I have to take exception with your opinion concerning small taillights, Australia. One drizzly day on the way to a rodrun, I almost "mounted" my buddy's '34 coupe because his '39 taillights were located down near the fender bottoms and weren't visible for any distance. I "think" LEDs might have helped a bit. Just an opinion. I totally agree with you about the brightness when vehicles with huge taillights are equipped with them. Those appear to be running with a foot on the brake pedal.
Gary, I never used the word small, there is a good reason for that. The design rules stipulate a minimum size, minimum height. and viewing angles. They also have a maximum wattage. Without all of the details the lights being down low may not have been allowed in Australia and most likely contributed to their poor visibility. Steve
My old 40 sedan was almost rear ended more then once in the daytime and LED's solved that problem. The car was converted to 12 volts also and all I could think of to make the assembly reflect more. But I can understand your problem also, no easy answers either.
At least they may trigger a "stomp on the brake pedal fast" response when they are right up your clacker and looking at their phone.
How about just using halogen bulbs and painting the buckets white? Did wonders for my car and doesn't look like a new Honda.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are the smoked taillight lenses that you can't hardly tell when the driver in front of you puts on the brakes unless you're looking at them when the brake lights light up! I just about tagged a pickup a couple weeks ago and I don't think I was exactly asleep at the wheel when it happened. Lynn
Anyone ever sat behind a Cadillac Escalade that has LED tail light strips that are at least 3 feet long? Talk about a blinding light!
The worst ones are the extra LED driving lights that people leave on all the time and blind oncoming traffic, and refuse to turn them off.
Paint the inside of the taillight bucket shiny white. Makes a big difference even with a traditional 1157 bulb.
Those pesky ass bright lights are what I told the nice officer was the reason I had on my sunglasses that night. And, of course he had a wonderful answer. "If they're too bright, maybe you're following too close?"
As an aside When '39 tail light are mounted on other than a '39 they tend to "point at the stars". The only solution I have seen is to mount them frenched with the bucket mounted so that lense is mounted vertcally.
I don't think that it's fair to compare LED lights in a Model A tail light to those in an new F-150. I modified a light for hitch receivers to that is LED as well as LED '53 Ford tail lights.
I got some that were supposed to be for 6 V pos ground.....totally worthless. Then got some "higher candella" regulsr bulbs from Macs....they were wired in reverse...so much junk......
And running the fog lights 24/7. Makes a lot of sense to dim the bright lights to have 2 dims and then 2 fog lights come on. Seems just as bright to me. If it isn't foggy, turn off the damn fog lights!
YES!! These damn bright driving/fog lights likely cause more accidents then they prevent. It makes me want to shine a green laser pointer into their eyes.
I am converting my '37 Chevy soon, they have about 6 square inches of lens each, so even good bulbs are not that bright. When compared to 50 or 60 square inches of light on modern cars, mine are really small. I
You're not the only one, Steve. I TOTALLY AGREE!!! I might add the same about blue LED headlights. It looks like I just got flashed by a TIG welder without a welding helmet after encountering them, and it takes a while to refocus. How safe is that? Even OT digital dashboards with blue or red lights (which we don't talk about here), everything is a blur. Traditional dash lighting is just fine. In the shop when I look at a car's gloss paint (especially dark colors), all I see is the LED light fixture reflecting from the ceiling. I have a hard time finding the body lines. I may be getting old, but I don't even need glasses, except for reading and these stupid computers. I HATE LED LIGHTS OF ALL KINDS, PERIOD! Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program...
I know! I often thought about putting some LED cowl lights on the '32 and give them a taste of their own medicine!
Exactly. I really don’t like LEDs in tail lights on hot rods. They look really out of place. Initially I had some LED equipped lenses in my 37 Ford tail lights on my RPU. They looked awful and they weren’t as bright as they should have been. So I ordered some quality red glass lenses and painted the inside of the buckets bright white. I then installed Sylvania Silverstar 1157 bulbs.
I don't have a problem with the taillights, it's those super bright headlights that bother me, they will blind you. HRP
1157L I believe is the Long-life version of the bulb, have used them in rear panel A's, w/'39 lights over 40+ years.
LED taillights don't bother me in most older cars as they've got much smaller light housings usually. The newer cars with their massive LED arrays are very bright, and I wish they were restricted, as they're so bright they've gone from a safety feature to unsafe because of the light levels. I've got LED lights I made up to go inside the running lights and turnsignals on my coupe, and my Austin, and I love them. They're bright enough, without being blinding. I also converted my original headlamp reflectors to Halogen sockets, and then put LED headlamps in them. I looked around and found that LED headlamps are not just one brightness. You have the choice of a lot of different light levels, so you don't have to choose those extremely bright LED's like so many rice rockets use. Mine are not any brighter than a standard halogen, or sealed beam headlight.
Size and placement all figure in to being seen. Most older cars tail lights mounted lower than what we are accustomed to seeing now, and were much smaller. That's where a third brake light mounted higher up helps to be seen. My factory brake light on my Lincoln is dead center of the trunk, right at hood level on most cars, so it's easily seen. Some Plymouths and Dodges used a brake light in the same spot. They hadn't figured out how to put both brake and turn signal lights on the same bulb yet, so instead of dual bulb tail lights, the brake light went on the trunk. I'm running regular 1157 bulbs in the tails/ts, and a 1156 in the brake light but in new sockets, plenty bright. Old sockets and dark housings make for dim lights.
There is a simpler reason to dislike LED lights at least on this board. They are just not traditional which is the focus of this board. LOL
I bought halogen seal beams and taillights for my 56 right after I bought it. Great front and rear especially with the replacement chrome taillight housings. I put LEDs in the backup lights which really helped backing the car into the garage. I agree with high bright headlights behind. When one is coming up I just move over to the right and stop if necessary by the curb and let them by... too old to get pissed off any more. I also have the courtesy any respect to turn off my headlights at night when waiting at a signal driving my stock height F-150 when behind a small car. I usually get a wave.
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