I just finished converting my front blinkers to led bulbs.

Pretty straight forward swap over of course but figured some might like to see the difference they make.

Going to be bright as hell when it gets dark. Tad overkill but whats done is done.

 

Last pic is my helper

She just has to check everything out.

 

Good lucking pup.
I started swapping out bulbs to led a wile back. Need to get in gear and finish. Thanks for the motivation.

 

Glad to help

Ive been about to go nuts waiting to install stuff between monsoon rains were having.

 

Looks good!

No more having to worry about blinker fluid is definitely worth the upgrade!

 

Seems I'm having issue with the dash lights ( turn signal lights) glowing. I still just have the cluster sitting in there since I'm waiting on new film to redo the cluster again.

Heres shots as the suns going down of just the parking lights on. Nothing else.

Also a pic of the clusters blinkers glowing.

 

Usually that's caused by a bad ground, either in the cluster itself or G201 on the door hinge pillar (buried under the carpet). The high beam indicator will also come on if this is a problem -- is yours OK?

How's the flash rate with the LED turn signals? Usually they flash too slow because of the low current required by the LEDs. An electronic flasher will fix this. I ask because that might have something to do with the turn signal indicators being on.

 

I replaced the factory flasher with an led a few months ago in case I wanted to go led's later. So the flash rates fine.

Also the led blinkers are working fine. What I'm battling with is the built in "feature" for a bad bulb warning the dash has. How it glows to let you know you have a blown blinker bulb. It thinks both blinkers are blown since the led bulbs don't have enough resistance.

I'm trying (with no luck so far) to determine how the bad bulb feature works. The diagrams for the cluster do not show any circuitry for it and I cant find any modules or other devices for it.

But I did just read the entire "how the blinkers/side lights handle power and ground" section of the fsm. I now have a major headache and I'm not really sure I grasped what it said. Very complicated method of working the lights with one set of lights grounding thru others.

I can put resistors I'm sure inline and fix the problem but resistors waste power and create heat. Kind of a stupid method to fix it if you ask me since the whole purpose of the led lights is to reduce power consumption and even heat too.

Tomorrow I'll change out one led bulb for the factory bulb. If I only have one turn signal light glowing in the cluster then I will know for sure that's the problem. Doesn't get me any closer to fixing it if that's the problem but it will at least confirm it.

I just wish I could wrap my head around how the thing makes the dash turn signal light glow from a bad bulb. If I can do that I can figure out a good fix for it.

 

Interesting.. I didnt know that was an issue. Id like to know the fix for it since I want to upgrade to led as well.

 

I just go thru surfing everything I could find on it across different make and models of other cars. A diode may be the solution but its to early to tell yet.

Fixing to snooze but when I get up tomorrow I'm going to try a few test to figure it out.

 

I have a theory which I havent tested out because most folks have trouble with the LED replacement turn signal bulbs. However I believe the problem is these bulbs dont have a built in resistor. On Ebay the built in resister type bulbs are sold as "no error" bulbs. Newer cars will report fault codes when using LED bulbs that are not this type. So Manufactuers have went to internal resister LED bulbs to cancel out these errors. You mentioned you changed out the flasher to an electronic flasher which is the first place to start. So my guess is until you replace these or put in a inline resister your problem will contine to exist. Or pull the bulbs and put the stock ones back in and they work correctly.

 

Correct.

Another issue with front LED turn signals in the later C4 Body style is polarity. LED's are polarity sensitive and only a few manufacturers actually make polarity non-sensitive LED's (no 1157 or #24 that I know of).

If you convert 91-96 C4 front turn signal bulbs to LED they will not blink and may not even work at all. The side marker bulbs alternate with the front turn signals when the blinker is activated and this is not possible with the way our car is wired. I have had this exact same problem when I attempted my full conversion.

The rear tail light LED's are a non issue and are plug and play with an electronic no-load flasher.

My opinion: LED's are certainly a worthwhile upgrade, but due to the age of the car and the way our wiring was laid out it is usually best to leave the dual filament bulbs on the front of the car as regular halogen and convert the rest of the car over to LED. Changing any dual filament bulb on the front of the car to LED will require some modification to the wiring which most of us don't want to hack up.

 

In post #8 I covered that a resistor would fix it.

On my 87 the blinkers work fine. I have no issue with the blinkers at all. Its the inside dash cluster turn signal glowing that's the problem. I can put a $19 set of plugin resistors on them and fix it that way but what I'm trying to do now is figure out of I can fix it with a diode. The diode fix is probably not something others would want to do since it will require splicing it in on each turn signal wire before the cluster but I'm going to at least see if that's a fix.

 

Yes, I was referring to the later body style. Not quite as simple.

There is always a fix, but sometimes its not worth the trouble. Looks great though man, hope you get the indicator situation figured out.

 

On the later ones that the polarity changes you use switch back led's. The mustangs had that same issue your referring to so its doable using those.

 

Well after figuring out how to solve my problem and it works I'm faced with a decision.

I can mod my car in the dash to fix the problem I'm having or I can do a fix that everyone can use that's plug and play using the resistors.

Since I'm as much into sharing the stuff I do on the car and helping others enjoyment wise as anything else I'm going the resistor route since that will help others.

Ordering the plug and play resistors now and will do a howto on mounting them when they come in.

 

Shows Monday or Tuesday for the estimated delivery date.

 

Looks great. I especially like your helper

 

Switchback LEDs did not work correctly on my '96. The left worked differently than the right. They would switch with start up, fog lights on etc. The voltage is all over the place and these can't handle it.

ordered another mfr set and a cheap pair off ebay. Amazon refunded the first one. Love Prime.

I'm waiting to put a small strip into the lens and run it DRL with regular filament bulbs. DRLs should be white. The Webelectric runs amber blinker on constant.

 

I put the vleds Triton V3 into my 95. Yes, they are more expensive than other solutions but they work perfectly with the added resistors. DRL are white and when switching the turn signal white goes off and amber it flashes.
When having the headlights running DRLs are dimmed a lot as required in Germany.

I really like it.