Justin Braune

Hello everyone!

I have the blue 1969 corvette in the picture and it came with the BUBBLE LENSES (UGHHH! Will be for sale if anyone loves em!).

I have already upgraded the front radiator to an all aluminum Dewitt, upgraded brakes to WILWOOD, so although I am keeping all original parts and #'s matching... I've already began to upgrade.

What is everyone's thoughts on the LED tail lights? I'm feeling them ESPECIALLY since:
1. better chance of no rear end: even worse than not all original right?
2. Lower power consumption! YAY
3. NEVER NEED REPLACEMENT! Ahhhh

Thoughts?

THANKS!
JB

7t2vette

I converted my 72 to have four tail lights, and bought the United Pacific LED tail light units; they are a lens and LED unit that bolt right in. They look like this:




They are well made, and did the job, but I wanted something different, so I made my own, and I detailed what I did in this thread:

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...led-halos.html

Justin Braune

OK, Your car and work is SICK! Not back to business- what is the fiberoptic boots/ferrules and **** for? I'm going to make my own custom mod here and love what you did, but on my 69.

1. how do you remove the housing from the body? not the lens, but the housing?
2. Do I need the fiber optic stuff?
3. It only looks like there is one bulb in each housing, is this correct?
4. I plan on keeping reverse lights, are those the ones with the dual purpose bulbs or are the outside ones the only ones? (on my car, the outside ones are the only ones.
5. I know there are more and leaving this one here so I can come back

Thanks a lot bud,
Justin

The13Bats

My thoughts on leds, they looks modern and hurt the classic looks of a c3,
But...I am into mods and see a reason people dig them, I use them on tons of things myself,

well, never need replacement isn't correct, the sad fact is while in and of itself an led can last a heck of a long time have you been in traffic and seen where a person had a multi led 3rd brake light as example and a few are burnt out, looks crappy hack job and yet unless savvy with soldering and boards one must replace the entire unit.
The generic trailer lights that came on my vw trike did this, cheap import crap...now I run 30 yo cross shaped chopper lights with led bulbs.

same with the tail lights bubble or stock looking that have multi led boards in them, the plus side, one burns out the others still work,

yes, they do take far less power and in turn you must replace the flasher with a special one so the turn signals will work ( if you are cheap like me you add a resistor )
Some plug and play kits have the resistor built in.

Safety from the rear, well you still only have two lights per rear unless you do what I see as a super smart mod and turn the back up lights into brake / turn lamps also, like later vettes and the 68 had.
Not all leds are even as bright as heavy duty old fashion bulbs check the output...

I really love the look 7t2 has especially the little fog/driving lights up over the front plate...

So if you dig them run them, after all it's YOUR car.

BTW,
My car in the avatar pic, the caprice lights have sequencers and flash one two three....yep...I do love some tacky stuff.

ENCSDOUG

I like the bubble lens and did what Bats recommeded by converting the back ups to Brake and turn lights. Very easy to do. My better half followed me from a cruise-n and said the lights looked bright and was neat seeing the two lights blinking at the same time.

rays699

what did you do to converting the back up s to brake, I have a 69 ray

Torqued Off

I think they look terrible and could care less about their brightness. Stock looks better.....since you asked.

And as far as never needing replacement, that's the myth and story the people who sell them like to tell you. This is one of these great ideas of fixing something that is not broke. Replace a simple inexpensive bulb with a more expensive part. Its really great for someone manufacturing and selling the LED.

Richard Daugird

I am not an LED fan, AT ALL, but especially on cars, and DOUBLE especially on headlights, should be banned, very dangerous to other drivers.

And they sure as Hell do burn out. We have a bunch of them here at work, half a dozen are out right now. They are terrible to work under; if I need to work on something I go to an area with flourescents(which I have not replaced ONE in three years).

Kubs

I love the look of LED and did my own tail lights. There are pictures of how I did mine in 7t2vette's thread linked above. I kept the stock tail lights and inner backup lights, and was able to put a halo in all 4. the 4 halos act as my running lights, outers are brake/turn, and inner ones are still backup.

ENCSDOUG

Ray,
I ordered two new light housings (Brakes) with pigtails and drilled holes into the car to match the new bolt pattern. The housing bolt patterns are different between the two. Tapped into the brake wiring harness and tied into the inner lights.

If your not into the bubble look. You could order the flat brake lenses.

ignatz

They actually light faster than incandescents which have to heat up before they are visible. Worth a couple of feet of margin, provided the guy tailgating you is actually paying attention.

From somewhere on the internet: Note that a 200 ms improvement in braking response time is equivalent to a 19.1 feet reduction in stopping distance at a speed of 65 MPH.

7t2vette

Thanks for the compliment.

The fiber optic cables all went back to the shifter console plates, and they were meant to show you if your various bulbs were working or not.

1) The housings are held to the body by two threaded studs; the nuts are accessible from the back of the rear panel. The backs of the housings look like this:





Fair warning:When I tried to remove the nuts, the entire threaded stud twisted off. I then drilled out the head of the stud and used 1/4-20 bolts with a flat countersunk head. This is mine:




2) The fiber optic system is not necessary for the car to function, but I think it is a pretty cool and unique feature worth keeping.

3)Yes. The stock tail lights each have a single 1157 bulb, and the reverse lights each have a single 1156 bulb.

4) Only the 1157 bulbs are dual filament; the 1156 reverse light bulbs are single filament.

I also replied to your email.

Torqued Off

Yeah, right. Engineering gobbligook that means nothing in the real world. When I think of the "safety" of a C3 Corvette compared to modern vehicles, worrying about milliseconds mean nothing. I know its relative, but it just sounds like an engineering viewpoint, which quite often leans toward the absurd when balanced against the multitude of other factors.

The13Bats

Oldgto jim did that to his car, just used 4 tail lights and look almost stock...far safer

I am gonna bench test some I have I didn't really think about it or care but the rear of my vw trike has both incandescent and led and while it's hard for the eye to catch the incandescent light up faster, both are different light but about the same brightness

and I realize this is different but the led bulb I placed in the house hall light takes about 1/2 a second to light a long time if you are gonna fall down the stairs in the dark.

I am one of the people who can not use white led to do work with, forget it bugs my eyes my brain and the light just doesn't work for me,

LED headlights, yeah, a lot of headlights out there now really hurt oncoming drivers but lots of d bags don't dim highs either.

Richard Daugird

You hit the nail on the head