I've found lots of good advice on getting brighter headlights (which I am going to try) I haven't found as much on brighter tail lights. I have a 72 ragtop cutlass. The tail lights all work but are dim and the nature of the car mean they are low. I have almost gotten rear ended twice driving at night. Three of the four tail light sockets look original, the fourth is obviously a different socket basically taped in place. Is it possible just to put brighter bulbs in? I get the impression the voltage is going to limit the brightness. Are there brighter bulbs available if I buy new sockets?

 

I think Sylvania makes a "brighter" bulb, available at your local parts store. Google "tailight LED bulbs" and several sites pop up that have LED units available; be sure and not the accessory items necessary to use these type bulbs. They should be much brighter, I would think. I've never triem, kind of pricey. Uses your stock bulb receptacle. Good luck. Should you try this conversion, why don't you advise CO of success/failure for others.

 

mhood check out my solution. I had the same problem with weak tail lights and people almost hitting me.

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...il-lights.html

I'm sure they have something that will fit your housing.

 

Put red headlights in the back?

My eyeballs vibrate after I've been sitting behind a car with them them waiting at a light.
The Audis with the line line of LED's in the headlight pods for daytime running lights drive my eyeballs totally nutso.

Here's those bulbs.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...rake-turn.html

 

Use 2057 and 2056 bulbs in place of the original 1157 and 1156. I believe they are a higher wattage. Of course make sure the grounds are good and the rest of the electrical system is working correctly.

 

Not much difference in bright (stop/turn), if any, between 1157 and 2057. The low (running/tail) is a little higher in the 2057. I compared myself. Olds uses 1157, caddy uses 2057.
Many newer cars still use the same brightness bulbs (and many still use one bulb setups!) so i do not fault the bulbs themselves.

Here is a common issue:
Make sure the inside reflectors and lenses are clean and shiny! Over time they dull out or get water in them, rust, or get dirty, lenses fade from the sun, etc.
My '72's parking lights were like that. They used to have white reflectors but the gasket leaked and they rusted and dulled out. I pulled the lenses, wirebrushed the inside reflector and repainted them with gloss white. Installed original bulb # and polished up the lens and it is much brighter now - just like new! I used new gaskets, too.

Do not use too high a wattage bulbs if you find some as they can cause damage to wiring, lenses, and relectors (depending on construction).

Do not use "long life" bulbs if you can help it as they are dimmer than regular ones (made for 14V rather than 12V)

 

Hey All,

I dont know if anyone has heard of DealExtreme, but they have free shipping to North America, i'm in Montreal and i've ordered lots of cables and gadgets and they're usually pretty quick with their shipping, it's around 7-9 dollars for a pair of bulbs (red and yellow and white)

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/1-92w-1...w-2-pack-18507

Cheers,

Tony

 

You can do several things to improve your tail lights visibility. The #1 thing IMHO is LED conversions.
They draw LESS amperage, \give you MUCH better lighting, and last 100x longer = Win / Win / Win.

My 1st suggestion is to evaluate your sockets. Most likely you're NOT getting enough voltage to them
due to resistance in the wires, or the sockets are corroded to hell. Use a voltmeter and test the
voltage coming out of them. If they look like ***, replace them. they're like $5 a piece typically.

NEXT, Oldsmobile's have a funky reflector red lens INSIDE behind the outer lens in mine that spreads the light.
WITHOUT this reflector lens, the rear tail lights are ridiculously dim. Not sure if your year has them or not.

OldsLensmissing2.jpg

As for which LED bulbs to choose, this is where the options and sources get crazy.
Here's my new 78z28's rear LED conversion. These are semi-truck 30 LED pods. They were $12 each.
Super Bright LED's would charge you $50 a pop for these minimum. That's why I say stay away from them.



I've been doing LED and HID conversions since 2003. Every vehicle and motorcycle I've owned and still own.
My advice, stay away from SuperBrightLED's unless you want to pay a 300-500% markup.

Window shop there, and buy what you want on Ebay or DealExtreme

NOW....the funny thing is my 1970 Olds tail lights are so mint and clean, and BRIGHT I've
never even considered changing them over to LED's yet. Funny I know.....and shocking.

 

Try replacing the 1157 with P21/5W.
1157 specs
P21/5W specs

They are a bit brighter and should fit the socket.

 

Yes, the 72 has them also. These are the lenses that actually make them appear bright by gathering and bending the light and projecting it outwards.

 

I don't know how people near you drive, but I've NEVER been almost-rear-ended at night, in any car.

All modern cars, have used the same taillight bulbs (there is a newer variant with a plastic base), right up to the newest ones now, which have LEDs. The laws regarding tailight brightness and visibility have not changed, and those fancy LED lights on some cars still have to conform to the same standards that your Cutlass did when it was made.

My point? If you're not getting enough light out of your taillights, check your reflectors and lenses, and your sockets and connections. You could change to LEDs, but, as Aces points out, you shouldn't need to.

You may notice that some cars you see on the road have unusually (annoyingly) bright taillights (sometimes on one side only) - these are usually European cars with proper fog lights, whose owners think they look "cool" running their fog lights all the time. They don't know that their foglight switch also turns on "fog" taillights, usually brakelight-type bulbs, which are much brighter than taillights. If you're ever stuck behind one of these idiots, it can burn your eyes out. Don't put in taillights that are as bright as those, or you may find yourself rear-ended on purpose. By me.

- Eric

 

I have, and i know exactly what he's talking about.
Regardless of how people drive, when they can't see your brake lights come on, you're just asking to get rear ended sooner or later.
Cell phones , Ipods, texting, with all the distractions people have on the road....

My Camaro's got black outs on it, and with the stock OEM bulbs I wasn't getting proper voltage to them due to the age of the wiring and corrosion.
Daytime you couldn't even see my brakes. It was real bad. Night time they were so dim it was ridiculous and I knew I'd get rear ended sooner or later.

I wish I had pics to show you the difference in my Olds with and without the reflectors. It's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge difference.
Not even kidding. Someone on this forum was kind enough to sell me 2 of them very cheap. I forget who it was.
I had 1 of the 4 missing when I bought my car off my Uncle and it was VERY obvious it was missing.

 

But if you're talking brake lights, might it not mostly be the fact that people now are used to the third, center, brake light, mandated since the eighties, and if they don't see it, they tend to rear-end? Even most buses I see now have them, not because they're required to, but because it cuts down on sheet-metal (or sheet-plastic) damage from cars rear-ending them.

But that's illegal because you can't see the lights, right? Nothing to do with the brightness of the originals.

- Eric

 

It indeed is a problem, and a worry. I attempted to address the issue by 1) using a license plate frame that incorporates a 3rd brake light. Nice feature here is, no mods to factory equipment. 2) On some cars (Corvair), in addition to the license plate frame 3rd brake light I rewired and relensed the backup lights to make them work as tail lights.

 

No. If someone told that to a judge they'd get laughed at too IMO.
Do motorcycles have a 3rd brake light ??

"Your honor, I'm sorry I ran over that poor biker, but he didn't have a 2nd or 3rd brake light".

If your theory was accurate, Power Tour would be one hell of an insurance nightmare
and so would every cruise night wouldn't it ?? None of those cars have 3rd brake lights ,
so every vehicle would be VERY HIGH RISK for being rear ended.

It's like all 2008+ vehicles requiring TPMS sensors in each tire to let you know when it's
low on air. Does that mean anything pre-2008 is unsafe to drive without them because
no one knows there is a valve to check manually??

At the end of the day, we're talking about an investment vehicle.
It's best to put as BRIGHT of a tail light on it as possible, same as Motorcycles.

 

Just disassemble and clean the lamp pods and inside of the lenses and refractors. Paint the pod if needed- gloss white as Rob mentioned for parklamps and backup lamps, and that simulated chrome aluminum paint works good for unpainted pods.

All that made an incredible difference on the Toronado's lighting. We also did it on a buddy's 64 Grand Prix that was dangerous to drive, the rear lamps were so dim. That one had bad taillight gaskets that had allowed enough dirt and water in over the years that the inner lens was almost opaque. Couple hours of disassembly and scrubbing/painting made a world of difference in brightness.

Now, the screwy original lamp sockets were another story. He finally decided it was simpler to get a new harness than to keep messing with them. Then the new harness came in with one socket wired backwards so that the inner lamp brake filament was lit when the taillights were on, and with taillights off that lamp lit dim when brakes were used. So- another half hour or so to rewire that.



It's probably a good thing I'm not LEO, because that is a pet peeve that would result in a lot of failure to dim or improper equipment tickets. Dumbasses apparently don't know or don't care that most modern fog lamps are 65w or higher- which is about the same as a lot of high-beam headlights. Let one get knocked off aim and they blind the crap out of any approaching driver.

Newer GM and Ford pickup fog lights are especially offensive. Newer GM pickup headlights alone are bad enough, then you add in the fog light and anyone you're meeting or following is at risk of being blinded. Some of those Chevy p/u headlights are damn near bright as a welding arc- and I meet one every morning headed to work, head and fog lights blazing.

 

It's not a theory.

The high-center brake light was adopted as a requirement after testing in the early eighties on fleet vehicles showed unquestionably that a brake light on the centerline, above the level of the taillights, caused a significant reduction in rear-end accidents. Other combinations, such as pairs of brake lights mounted at package-shelf level, were also tested and didn't show the same improvements. The results were so persuasive that the law was changed to require them in all new cars starting in 1986.

Since it is an established fact that high-center brake lights reduce rear-end collisions, it should also stand to reason that a generation of drivers accustomed seeing those lights on essentially every car on the road, might have an even higher incidence of rear-end collisions with those few cars that don't have them, because they are now in the habit of looking for them.

If I wanted to reduce the chances of being rear-ended in traffic, rather than artificially increasing brake light brightness to possibly illegal levels, I would make sure that rear lights are clean and operating as designed, then install a center brake light on the package shelf. There were lots of retrofit units made in the eighties that can still be found.

- Eric

 

There are people who calculate risk for a living. Auto Insurance.
Is there an insurance surcharge or discount for 3rd brake lights??

No doubt more lights equals increased awareness.
But its hardly an excuse to use as reason for an accident.
Its as reasonable of an excuse as TPMS sensor deficiency is

Is your point that he needs a 3rd brake light?
I can agree it will always help.

 

My point is that I believe that once your tail and brake lights are up to factory output levels, you will get more rear-end prevention from a third brake light than from making your existing lights even brighter, even though making them brighter may be more fun, and installing a third brake light may make you feel like a dweeb.

- Eric

 

thanks for all the advice as usual. I cleaned the lenses and re-painted the reflectors. The lowers look great. The uppers are still dim (although much better), not getting a good ground on the bases. I am looking to replace those (maybe with LED). My car is a convertible, no good spot for a third light.

 

What reflector did you paint ??

The recessed area cup where the bulb mounts only I hope, right ??
Not the reflector lens inside the lens cover I hope. Those should be translucent.

The pic in post #8 is what I hope you didn't paint.

 

And those are the parts we are assuming you have in there. Make sure they are nice and clean and translucent.
The upper lenses get more sun exposure, so compare the colors with the bottoms. If they are a different color, then they need replacing.. LEDs will not shine through well either.

 

the inside lens,wouldn't that be call a refractor

 

I did an LED conversion in my 72 Satellite. One of the things I liked best was the quicker response. The standard bulb was ok brightness, but lit up slowly and went out slowly. All wiring checked, nothing to fix.

Went with the LED's, got a huge bump in brightness and instant on when pushing the brake pedal.