ELECMAN

I was thing about changing the bulbs in the tail lights and the parking lights in my 72 cutlass.Has anybody done this and what are the best bulbs and are they bright enough thanks.

Aceshigh

Truthfully speaking here......
I'm an LED and modding junkie, and even I don't think the rear tail lights of my 1970 442 clone need to be upgraded.

They're very bright AS LONG AS you're using the proper reflectors inside each lens.
Without the proper reflectors, they look weak.

Lady72nRob71

Clean the inside of the lenses and and repaint inner housing of parking lights with gloss white - makes a world of difference. I used model paint on mine!


Lenses can be polished up with plastic polish (or chrome polish or some other fine stuff).

I think rear lights can be painted aluminum or even white.

DeltaPace77

Problem with LED's, is they don't draw much current, sometimes causing the flashers not to work properly. Waytek Wire sells electronic flashers #47972 & 47973 to correct for this. Can't say I'm a real fan of the instant on/off flashing myself, but last forever. Most semi trucks use them now, as does my home lighting.

a64olz

I replaced my tailights, they look a little brighter but not what I expected, but then I have NOS housings and lenses. If you go LED do not use white on the tailights white on red looks pink use red LED, same with amber lenses use amber LED's. I also painted the inside of my turn signal housings white as L72nR71 noted.

hookem horns

Anyone swapped out interior lights with LED's (courtesy, map, console, etc.)? Map light lens is a little darkened by the bulb heat already. I've seen some threads on dash lights but I'm not that ambitious unless the dash come out for some other reason.

DeltaPace77

Gotta be careful with LED's for certain applications, as are much more directional than incandescent’s. This is usually gotten around, by making LED replacements in clusters, facing different directions. Not so sure how well this would work in dash instrumentation lighting.