LED tailights

[siju]

Hello,

I have purchased some LED bulbs to install them in the rear lights. As I have seen in PP I need to switch the polarity of the wires. In the picture it is the night lights/brake lights and there are 4 wires. Can anyone explain in which combination the wires must be switched as electrics are not my strong point?

I have already done the reverse lights but they have only two wires so it's quite obvious.

Also how can I slide the pins out of the plug to make the switch in a proper/OEM way insread of just cutting and reconnecting the wires?

 

[suicidalllama]

What bulbs is it you've got? The led bulbs I installed recently worked without any rewiring.

 

[siju]

They are just some LED bulbs from my local electrical shop. I had already seen from other puma owners that the wires needed switching so it didn't come as a surprise to me.

What bulbs did you use that didn't need any rewiring?

 

[red]

Are they not working at the minute then? Diodes don't work the same as a bulb, a diode only allows current to flow in one direction. So if it's not the right way around they won't work. This is easy for things like the sidelight bulbs as you can just put them in the other way.

 

[red]

You also need dual filament bulbs, do you have these or only single?

 

[red]

I just found some info that says the stop/tail shouldn't be reverse polarity and should just work with the dual filament bulbs.
The rear indicators may be reverse polarity and might need the cables swapping over.

 

[TGPlayer1]

Rear indicators and reversing lights are reverse polarity, stop/tail are normal polarity.

But beware; they are a bit crap in terms of seeing the brake lights when the sides are on, unless they are super expensive bulbs. I know this as the amount of people that nearly run up my backside :lol:

 

[siju]

I have tried all three of them (reverse-side-stop/tail) and they didn't work. Then i reversed the wires on the reverse lights and they worked.
I didn't have the time to try to reverse the tail/stop ones but it seems that i don't have to. The strange thing is that the tail/stop should work as you say that they are normal polarity. I have a dual filament bulb for the stop/tail.
Can you give me a link (fleebay or whatever) for a stop/tail bulb that you have actually used so i don't have to try different things?

 

[CherryVimto]

I'm pretty sure the additional orange wire(s) are the supplies to the number plate lights so they should be the wires for the tail lights with the purple being the brake lights and black being earth.

I've fitted LED tail/brake light bulbs in the past but had a small issue with the entire dash and side lights turning on every time the brake lights came on.
This is because the LED bulbs I used were made so the brake and tail light 'sections' weren't electrically separate, whereas a normal filament bulb has 2 individual filaments thus being totally separated.
I got around this by cutting the orange wires to the tail lights and soldering in a couple of diodes. This prevented the voltage from the brake lights feeding back in to the tail light circuit.
I was very pleased with the LED bulbs I bought as they had a very noticeable difference between the tail light and the brighter brake light.

As with making your joins in the wires neater, I soldered the wires together and covered the join with heat shrink tubing followed by a length of black insulation tape wrapped around to make it look more OEM.
Also as previously stated, the tail/brake light wires do not actually need swapping.

 

[siju]

Thank you for the reply.
I tried again the bulbs that I bought and they operate when they are in a specific position which means that they don't do a good contact. Probably due to the cheap bulbs i have. So i will buy some proper led tail/brake bulbs to experiment with them.
In the meantime i was busy buying an eaton m62 :lol: to start a more serious project!

 

[DradusContact]

Sorry to drag this up, does anyone know if these would be ok?

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XRGV4XQ/?coliid=I2VMNVBJTZ3Z0G&colid=1F9BZTB9XL2T6&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

 

[CherryVimto]

Sorry to drag this up, does anyone know if these would be ok?

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XRGV4XQ/?coliid=I2VMNVBJTZ3Z0G&colid=1F9BZTB9XL2T6&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

From my experience don't buy white LED bulbs especially for the tail/brake lights as I have found that the white light inside the red lense makes the lights look pink and may cause a problem come MOT time.

 

[DradusContact]

From my experience don't buy white LED bulbs especially for the tail/brake lights as I have found that the white light inside the red lense makes the lights look pink and may cause a problem come MOT time.

You got any suggestions as to what might work?

 

[YOG]

https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/blogs/news/why-you-should-not-use-white-leds-behind-coloured-lenses

 

[DradusContact]

Do you recommend getting the bulbs from them?

 

[CherryVimto]

This is the sort of thing I bought but when I got mine they were a lot different...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bright-R...hash=item1edc30b1e2:m:mVPfqQw0ZNoGQ7ig-aIc4eQ

As I stated in a previous post, the brake light and the tail light parts may not be totally separate... it would depend on how they are made. If all the side lights and dash light up when the brake light it pressed, it is easy enough to add a diode in to the rear wiring to stop this happening. I still have shed loads of them from when I did mine so I can send you some if you end up needing them.

 

[DradusContact]

I will buy them ones and give it a go. Do the indicators need resistors too to stop them flashing fast?

 

[CherryVimto]

I will buy them ones and give it a go. Do the indicators need resistors too to stop them flashing fast?

Not resistors. You should be able to get low current/LED flasher relays so it will cure the hyper flashing for all the indicators. Mine was bought years ago so have no details on which one it was.

EDIT: Have a read of this post, but double check that the relay in the link is the correct pin-out...

https://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=14025&p=179950&hilit=LED+flasher#p179950

 

[DradusContact]

Cool man thanks for info! I've ordered the stop tail lights you linked to for now. I presume the relay thing you have to change all 6 bulbs for it to work right?

 

[CherryVimto]

Cool man thanks for info! I've ordered the stop tail lights you linked to for now. I presume the relay thing you have to change all 6 bulbs for it to work right?

You should be able to run the flasher relay with standard bulbs.. at least the one had would!