Next we have the conversion of the old bulbs in the side marker housing to led. These are the flood lights that come on when you have your parking lights on and the turn signal on to help you see where your turning to better.
Old bulbs were kind of dim for this. This is one area the LED’s really helped.
First off I want to state these were a PAIN to change. I thought the blinkers would be the hard ones since you can barely see them. Heck the side markers at the front are sitting there right out in the open. How hard could changing these bulbs possibly be?
Turns out the only way to clear the bulb from the house was to take the bolts out of the fender well that hold the brace that runs along the top of the sill above the bulb. This gave me enough movement when pulling on the sill to clear the socket enough to remove it.
The last pic shows where I removed the bolts if you look closely. Still using my camera phone till I get my new cannon rebel t5i camera so its the best I could do.
Also note the bolts are removed from the top of the lip/sill too. I don’t think they really helped any. It was the two in the fender well area that did the trick.
Last problem I had and I don’t have pics of how I did it but I may add them as I have one more bulb to go on the other side is the cutting I had to do.
The LED bulbs have a metal lip at the top of the base as it goes into the light area. This lip was holding the bulb out to much I shaved the tip off the new led bulb a bit thinking that was the problem stopping it from turning.
This may of helped some but the final solution was the take my pocket knife and cut around the top of the light socket just a bit. Basically whittled the inside lip off a very small amount. Went in and worked fine then.
The tip of the bulb doesn’t rest on the bottom of the housing which is something I was worried about since its a bit longer than the factory bulb. If you do the swap make sure the bulbs you go with don’t rest on the bottom of the housing since it would probably melt it.
Its rained for several days here so there mud everywhere and I did this between downpours today.
Here are some shots as its getting dark outside comparing the side marker turn lights.
First is the led and 2nd is the stock bulb.
The led’s are well worth it on this mod.
Tool Pornz Intermission
I had been using a Makita set I bought a few years ago but it was so large it wasn’t ideal for tight spots in cars and such. This set ROCK. Highly recommended. I’ll shoot a link below to amazon. Seems to be the cheapest place to get it.
Makita LCT209W 12V max Lithium-Ion Cordless 2-Piece Combo Kit
Now lets mod the sockets
First pic is the socket being cut. I found that by placing the tip of the blade down in the socket and leveraging it I was able to shave off a nice clean cut around the lip. Remember your only wanting to widen the very top of the socket enough to get the led bulb in. This also has no effect on the stock bulb mounting wise if you want to undo the led switch over.
Second pic shows the finished trimming and the final is the led in the socket.
The cutting I did is almost un-noticeable and the stock bulb will go back in fine later if need be. Just trim the very out lip on the inside like I did.
On the 2nd bulb I didn’t file the bulb tip any to see if the trimming alone was all that was needed and sure enough its just the plastic lip that needs trimming. Filing the bulb end wasn’t needed.
The Bulbs I used are :
JDM ASTAR 1200 Lumens Extremely Bright 144-EX Chipsets 1156 1141 1073 7506 LED Bulbs with Projector , Xenon White
6000k color temp so a white to slightly blue-ish white.