I just swapped out all the bulbs in my ‘72, except the headlights, for SuperBright LEDs (superbrightleds.com). The total cost was about $160.00. Since I have several hours in figuring this out, I thought I’d share my “conversion” chart.

Notes:

donsbulbs.com is THE source for technical information about all of the bulbs: conversion (GM part # vs. standard part number), number of contact points, size of base and of the bulb. There is nothing you need to know that this site doesn’t have.

My car is not on the road, so I can’t say how bright these are in the real world, but they look good in the garage.

The basic variables are: Size (diameter) of the base, number of contact points in the base, size (diameter) of the “head”, number of individual leds in the head (which correlates to brightness), degree of angle (narrow angle vs. wider angle), the color of the light.

Where I had a choice, I always picked the wider angle.

I used colored leds where the lenses are colored. For example, a red led in the rear side lights, a green one in the turn signal indicator. That’s how SuperBright says to do it, and it works.

My dash lights don’t dim with the dimmer. They are either on or off. The SuperBright web site says: “If I install LED bulbs in the dash, will the dimmer still work?
Yes, LED bulbs will dim with your dash light intensity control.” Not my experience, at least so far.

The overall effect in the dash is that the light is more of a blue cast than the stock lights. It’s not a bad color, and the light is very even. The blue cast may well be the effect of the blue paint in the cups behind the bulbs. Stock incandescent lights are naturally a more yellow color; I’m guessing that GM meant for the blue to balance the yellow. If anyone was really into it, you could probably change the blue paint for something that would balance the whiter light of the leds.

Turn signals: I replaced the one front flasher with their unit. They seem to flash just fine.

There are probably alternatives for some of these, such as the BA9-W4 instead of the BA9-W-WV for the dash lights. I didn’t try them all.

I didn’t bother with the “radio dial light” and the “stereo indicator light.”

My car is a T-Top, I suppose convertibles may have some differences.

I have not yet put the “67W-15” in the License Plate Light. It should fit (the top is 18.6 mm. and the original bulb was 19mm). I originally tried an 1156-W12, but the top was too big (25mm).

Eckler's has a Xenon headlight setup, their part # 49363. If anyone has tried this, I’d like to hear about it.

Please post any flaws you find with this information! I’m not a lighting pro by any means!

I tried to post this in a table, but it wouldn’t work (it was easier to read in the Table – send me an individual e-mail and I’ll send it to you).

Jeff Boyd
jeffboyd@rrohio.com

The columns are:

BULB/LOCATION, COLOR, GM Part #, Common Part #, SUPERBRIGHT Part #, the # you need.

FRONT
Parking Light/Front Turn Signal -- Amber -- 9428902 -- 1157 -- 1157 A24 -- 2
Front Side Indicator Lights -- Amber -- 9425542 -- 168 -- WLED A5 -- 2

INTERIOR
Instrument Panel Gauge lights -- White -- 9417863 -- 1895 -- BA9s-W-WV -- 16
Turn signal Indicators -- Green -- 9417863 -- 1895 -- BA9s-G4 -- 2
"Bright" (High Beam) indicator -- Blue -- 9417863 -- 1895 -- BA9s-B4 -- 1
"Door Open Warning" -- Red -- 9417863 -- 1895 -- BA9s-R4 -- 4
"Headlamp Door Warning"
Seat Belt Warning
Parking Brake Warning

Cigarette Lighter Light -- White -- 274004 -- 1445 -- BA9s-W-WV -- 1
Heater Control Switch Light -- White -- 454626 -- 1816 -- BA9s-x-WV -- 1
Front Courtesy Lights -- White -- 193125 -- 631 -- 1156-W12 -- 2
Rear Courtesy Light -- White -- 142453 90 -- 1142-W19 -- 1

REAR
License Plate Light -- White -- 1547172 -- 97 -- 67W-15 -- 1
Rear Side Indicator Lights -- Red -- 9425542 -- 168 -- WLED R5 -- 2
Backup Lights -- White -- (? GM #) -- 1156 -- 1156 W24 -- 2
Tail/Stop/Turn Signal Lights -- Red -- 9428902 -- 1157 -- 1157 R24 -- 2

FLASHER
Turn Signal Flasher -- GM #3909545 -- Superbright #: FL2-RED

 

Do you have any pics of your tail lights? I wanna see how bright they are.

 

Thanks for the info! And if ya have some Pic's - Post them!

 

I'd love to see some pics at night of the interior with the new lights, as I'm thinking of doing he same thing.

Thanks.

 

I'll try some pics, but I wonder how much they will tell. The light "color" probably, but over-or-under exposure will be a problem.

I'll give it a shot, and post them soon.

 

I would also like to see some pics

 

PICS please

 

Sounds simple enough, how long did it take to replace them all? I'm pretty interested in seeing pictures too..do you like the look vs stock?

 

Bump for pics

 

can we get some pics please

 

I tried LEDs in the rear lights of my '69 but found the angle of the socket made the lights look strange. They also didn't scatter enough light to the fiber optic pickup to make those visable in the cab.

They worked fine in my '61.

Pictures of both running and brake lights would be great!!

I wanted them to give the guy trailing me an extra 5-10 feet to stop before plowing into me!!!! Their illumination time IS noticable and gives the guy behind you more time to stop!!!

 

Any pics of this yet?

 

 

Yes I think I have, I believe this is Speeddirect's product. The harness is top notch , the lights are not worth it. The high beam fixtures don't fit the headlight buckets without doing a hack job to them. The low beams are marginally better than good halogens, not worth the added expense and butchery, and they're not real Xenon lights like your expecting, they are standard filament type bulbs. Real Xenon lights like the one's that come in new cars have a spark that jumps across two electrodes requiring a ballast to start, like fluorescents do.

You'd do better with some quartz fixtures with high power "H" style halogen bulbs installed, brighter and much less expensive, the light emitted won't be that blueish color though.

http://www.speeddirect.com/index.aspx?nodeID=128

 

Ok I really want to have my gagues light up red, tried red bulbs but that just didnt work, So I was thinking of getting the red LED's in there because they are sapossed to be "brighter". Im thinking with that i'm goin to have to coat the inside of the gague cups with red, or possably even with soem aluminum foil or soemthign liek that, to help reflected the red. Do you guys think this will work? or should I just get new gagues that light up red? Thanks

 

 

I will be doing this to my car as well. What type of LED's did you use for your tach/speedo? I intended on using S-Flux LEDs for mine, did you use the normal 5mm? Also I remember seeing 21000mcd white LEDs around but can't find them anymore. Some pics would be nice =)

Also, I was actually intending to start this today, but my power was out so I couldn't use my iron. I was wondering how to attach the LED's to the sockets for the bulbs. How did you do this and how did you do your wiring? I was going to run around 3 off a bulb with maybe a resistor somewhere. How did you go about it?

Another good place for LED's is lsdiodes.com, I have done business with them many times. Good prices and 2.00 shipping anywhere.

 

I have a 68 and the gauges are supposed to be "green." However, they never seemed to look green to me, so now that my dashs are out, I've decided to consider green LEDS. These should make those gauges glow green. I went to superbrightleds.com and bought BA9s-x-WV green LEDS. These are 9mm bayonette bulbs and are replacement for the gauge bulbs in the console and speedo/tach bulbs. You want red? You can buy the BA9s-x-WV's in red.

I'm a little reluctant to install the LEDS, since I don't know if they will be too dim or too bright. Also, the stock light switch reostat may not have the right resistance element to dim the LEDS. I would like to install the LEDS, since I think the stock incandescent bulbs stress the stock lightswitch. My original reostat was burnt out (open circuit) and I could see heat damage on the wiring connector where the gauge lights receive power (the green wire). Since I now have a NOS light switch ($$$) I don't want to stress it. I'd like to reduce it's power loads since the LEDS consume very little power.

..bottom line question here. Can you replace the stock gauge lights in an early C3 (there's 16 or so) with the BA9s-x-WV' LEDS and will the illumination be acceptable and will the stock reostat be able to dim the bulbs? I'm wondering if direct replacement of the incandescent bulbs with LEDS will really need some re-engineering of the electrical circuit.
...................
LEDS = light emitting diodes. Controlling the brighness of LEDS with a reostat (a potentiometer in more modern technological terms) is workable. An efficient, sophisticated way of controlling LED brightness is to use a variable, constant current source.

 

LED's won't dim with the dimmer switch they will either be on or off. You turn the dimmer switch down and they stay bright until all of a sudden they will go off completly.

This is because as long as there is enough current the LED"S will stay on, the dimmer is a voltage rheostat, controlling voltage which normal dash lights respond too.

You need another circuit added in there to control the current to the LED's I had to do this with my Autometer Cobalt Tach as it is lit with LED's, Autometer sells the current limiting rheostat for LED's.

 

Are you trying to say you did not want a sun tan at night lol.