Nice Taillight bulb upgrade

[pizzaman09]

I've always been concerned about how dim the taillights on my Comanche are.  I picked up a set of Sylvania  Red 2357 bulbs and put them in the middle position on both rear light housings.  They are easily 2-3 times brighter and look nice and red within the housing.

What's fun is that the incandescent bulb in the top slot is slower to react so it has a nice moving up light look when blinking.  The photo above shows it much more orange than it really looks.

[Pete M]

nice!     just make sure that the rearward facing light is sufficient.  I had to trash a set of LEDs I had bought for my PT Cruiser that absolutely sucked at putting the light in the driver's eyes behind me.   tried again with a more expensive brand and they looked much better.   

 

if they are good, there's a member who's selling special blink pots that accommodate the LEDs.

[gogmorgo]

Yeah, like Pete says, just being brighter doesn’t help if the light isn’t going in the correct direction. Taillights are a precision optical instrument the same way headlights are. The lens is designed to shine light in specific directions, and requires the source of the light to be in a specific place and aimed in a specific directions. LEDs can get close, but they cannot perfectly replicate an incandescent filament. 
Sylvania is a large, well-respected manufacturer, so I’d expect they’d do well, but just because an LED bulb works well in most taillight housings doesn’t mean it will work well in all taillight housings. 

[pizzaman09]

On 10/29/2023 at 11:55 PM, gogmorgo said:

Yeah, like Pete says, just being brighter doesn’t help if the light isn’t going in the correct direction. Taillights are a precision optical instrument the same way headlights are. The lens is designed to shine light in specific directions, and requires the source of the light to be in a specific place and aimed in a specific directions. LEDs can get close, but they cannot perfectly replicate an incandescent filament. 
Sylvania is a large, well-respected manufacturer, so I’d expect they’d do well, but just because an LED bulb works well in most taillight housings doesn’t mean it will work well in all taillight housings. 

I fully agree and have run into this issue with other cheap LEDs.  These Sylvania bulbs do an excellent job spreading the light.  The white plastic around the diodes appears to be used for diffusing the light.  When following truck, the rear lights are now modern bright and well diffused as opposed to being like two candles similar to my 62 Austin Healey Sprite.  I'd upgrade that car too if it wasn't positive ground...

[Htchevyii]

There's been much talk about tail lamps lately. I'm not crazy about the thought of getting rear ended in this thing, so I've been hunting for more visible tail lamps. I tried a few LEDs and they were all dimmer than factory. I read about these "plasma LEDs" on one of the classic car forums from West Coast Classic Cougar. People have found them to be the best, even if you don't have a Cougar. They are impressive! The first photo is new driver's side bulbs, the second is LED upper and incandescent lower. These are not new lenses.

 

Oh ya, my old bulbs were some Honda ones that were already supposed to be brighter than stock. It's been a few years now and no problems in either vehicle that I installed them in.