Has anyone upgraded their taillights to LED's?

[Coelacanth]

I agree that those lights are a lot brighter.
My opinion.....I just don't like the look of them.

And I like the long taillight LED arrays doing goofy 'Stang or Coug sequence lighting even less.

 

[Kern Dog]

I do understand the appeal. I just wish that the LEDs glowed and that the lights all flowed together like the incandescents do. LEDs look like a bunch of separate small lights instead of one big one where the light is even across the lens.
I started a thread ... see post #146:

My brake lights aren’t bright enough

 

[gkent]

I like the "frosted" look - not so much the look of those above.

I have an idea to fabricate my own third-eye LED taillight at the top of the rear window with the Fratzog logo illuminating.

Elegantly tacky, yet unrefined !

 

[Coelacanth]

I like the "frosted" look - not so much the look of those above.

I'm with you on that. Back in the day, I did a lot of computer case modding and I would install some 5mm LED bulbs aiming along the edge of a piece of clear acrylic. If you frosted all the edges of that acrylic with some 320 or 400-grit sandpaper, all the edges would illuminate with a nice, frosted light...but the middle would still be clear with almost no light.

I unfortunately don't want to "frost" my Charger's taillight lenses with sandpaper, though...

 

[gkent]

I unfortunately don't want to "frost" my Charger's taillight lenses with sandpaper,

I'm keeping an eye out for a '69 taillight lens (or pair) at a reasonable price to blast the back side to see if that will work. I'd prefer a junked - scratched, chipped or cracked to try it on first!

 

[chrger1967]

When it comes to LED lights, I'm torn between the pros and cons. The obvious pros are they're brighter, illuminate quicker, are more efficient and output very little heat. I replaced all my interior and dash lights to LEDs. Especially the console courtesy bulbs, which scorched the inside of one of the white plastic lenses. I also replaced the hood signal indicators with LEDs, but that leads to my observation of the cons.

LED arrays look cute and all, but some of those diodes will inevitably fail. Every day, I see cars with LED arrays and burnt-out diodes, and it looks like A$$. Especially cars with long taillights like 2nd-gen Chargers. And you can't just replace a handful of dead diodes, you need to buy a whole new pair of LED arrays...very spendy. It's guaranteed to happen.

I would go for the idea of replacing the 1157 bulbs with LED bulbs instead of a full array, but LEDs typically aren't very diffuse and output more of a spot of light than a glow. I found this with some white LEDs I tried in my hood indicators; they mostly shone just a small circle of whitish light through the original amber lenses, it wasn't satisfying at all. Fortunately I found some amber LEDs that had diodes aimed more to the sides than straight out, and those made a big difference. The hood indicators now flash a nice, bright, diffuse orange color.

Grendel lives...resurrection of a 1970 Charger 500



I'd put LED bulbs in my taillights if they made a nice diffuse glow instead of 3 separate spots of light. Has anybody tried LED bulbs that produce a wider angle of light?

I'm good enough with 1156 and 1157 LED bulbs.