Rear lights suggestions

saudivette

saudivette

Clueless In Sandland
Joined
Mar 24, 2008
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2,633
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Aussie expat in Saudi Arabia
When I take my Corvette back to Australia, one of the first things I'll have to do before I can register it there, is to convert the rear indicators to amber colour. The most popular way of doing this is to either paint the reversing lamp lens amber or run an amber bulb in there, and re-wire the lights accordingly.

In my opinion, this looks like a crappy after thought and you end up with a pissy small indicator. I'd rather try and find a new pair of matching lights (per side) and have an indicator lamp and a brake/tail lamp.

I asked a few days ago for C4 tail light dimensions to see if they'd drop in to my C3 rear bumper holes, but they're an inch too big.

I have a new fiberglass rear bumper that I haven't fitted to the car yet and while I'd prefer to find some lights that would drop into the bumper without any modification, it would be far easier modifying the bumper now if I needed to, IF I could find any decent lights.

I'd prefer to stick with incandescent lights as the LED conversions I've seen look (IMO) cheap. I've scoured eBay and quite a few sites selling boat trailer lights but can't find anything decent. I did find this light:

003-6020Thumb.jpg


It's 5.1" in diameter, which is spot on, has a user replaceable bulb, a chrome reflector and is only $11! Great! But they don't make them in amber, only red.

Anybody got any ideas? Can anyone think of an existing car that has matching round tail lights, one amber, one red, between 4.5" and 5.5"? What about you guys in Europe?

Please chime in with some ideas guys...
 
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Wayne, it's 35f out now, and I"m tired of staying around the house in this frozen week we had here....so I going shopping....so the you need 4 lights, 2 red and 2 amber....round about 5" diameter......I have to scratch around, a bit....but I got two parts houses, already tried my vette guy I got the letters from, he has just ONE 'export' C4 amber, useless without the other one....so...

I gotta go buy some other crap anyway....lemme see about fishing.....

question...can you get amber lexan over there?? and MAKE two??

:bonkers:

OK, got something meant for trailer lighting....amber on one side, red on other identical lens patterns....4" diamter round, bulb in middle, obviously it has to come apart to change the bulb....7 bux each.....trick is, that the lens are a concentric circle pattern to them, not a bubbley pattern or made in china obviously, but PETERSON Mfg co.....is the american based supplier on back of the card.....
 
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4" Led

4" LED's like this are available from Harbor freight, but only in red. They are made for truck trailers (big rigs) and I am sure that you can find amber ones as I have seen them on the trucks around here. I'll keep looking to see what I can find.
I bought 4 of these red ones and this will probably be one of my next Vette Mods, I'd like to see if I can use them and still retain my bubble lenses too.
The 4" LED's install with very little trouble.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93263

:beer:
 
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I probably could get amber coloured Lexan out here Gene but I don't want to make tail lights that might (probably??) fail inspection. Plus, I'd rather have something that looks OEM - not like it was cut out with a jigsaw :lol:

Thanks for the links Lee. I've looked at a few trailer supply places and I'm pretty convinced now that the "standard" sizes are 4" and 7" as I haven't been able to come with a 5" light anywhere. Well, I found a place selling 5" lenses but no damn light housings!!

I still don't particularly want LED's as I think most of them look exactly like what they are - trailer lights. However, I found these ones and if all else fails, I could be swayed into using them:

st_ra.jpg


They're only 4" in diameter but the mounting flanges that go with the light are 5" in diameter so would fill the standard "holes" in the rear bumper. Plus, I think the lights mounted in those flanges would look pretty smart - I think it would have an OEM look about it:

fl-40_mm.jpg



I won't make any decisions yet until I hear back from the Australian guy and from another place called TaillightKing - the guy there has loads of different lights of all sorts of makes and models.

Thanks for the input though guys, I appreciate it. Keep the ideas rolling in :thumbs:
 
I was looking at these lights today. They won't fit straight into a C3 bumper but wouldn't take too much modification to make them fit.

Not LED's, just standard incandescent lights. Any thoughts on these?

35498ea79f9e81f.jpg

35498ea7a1888d0.jpg
 
DeeVeeEight said:
The 4" LED trailer lights with the rubber grommets fit snug in the C3 light pockets.

Here's a link for you.
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102770&highlight=LED+tail+light
Click to expand...

That looks like ass, way too few leds and they're those ugly super sized leds too. Those little wide beam modular leds that go straight on a PCB are so much nicer. They look like small white squares.

This is a led setup for the stang, they have quite a few leds and the illumination across the lens is nice and uniform, that's what I'm looking for.

24995ed5076c30.jpg
 
Twin_Turbo said:
DeeVeeEight said:
The 4" LED trailer lights with the rubber grommets fit snug in the C3 light pockets.

Here's a link for you.
http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102770&highlight=LED+tail+light
Click to expand...

That looks like ass, way too few leds and they're those ugly super sized leds too. Those little wide beam modular leds that go straight on a PCB are so much nicer. They look like small white squares.

This is a led setup for the stang, they have quite a few leds and the illumination across the lens is nice and uniform, that's what I'm looking for.

24995ed5076c30.jpg
Click to expand...

Take a look at these 1157 bulb replacements

http://www.mooneyesusa.com/Store/index.php?cPath=188_40&osCsid=13f22e251ee220f9650188809ed5b314


DAMN! I just read the fine print, white LED's are $20.00 MORE! That's cost prohibitive....
 
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Those will show like a very bright dot in the middle, and they won't fit the lens without pullig it apart. I like the leds to be all over the entire area so that it looks uniform. I have looked into those 1157 and 1156 ones. They are available with 40 something leds stacked on top of each other but I doubt those will fit.
 
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