A bold statement!!! i ve long since disliked the coupes narrow appearance because of the spacing of the rear stop/tail lights....more apparent at night, it definatly lacks pressence when viewed from rear , but i do like the lights and wanted to keep my car looking standard

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk103/bosco_018/BILD0523.jpg

my solution was a ring of leds inserted into the bottom indicator lights that remain invisible until on , where upon they give the appearance of a full stop / tail halo d by a ring of led s.
indicators /revearsing/&fog dwarf the ring in brightness when on and function as normal .....

What do you think , me i m well chuffed !!

Hmmm... discreet... quite like it to be honest. Try and make a picture at night...

i like the look of those bosco , i'v had the same idea as i now have angle eyes on the front of the car and was looking at something to do on the rear , where did you get the rings and do you have a link to them . pic's at night as kayjey said would be great m8 .

cheers kayjay....
difficult using a camera on lighting at night but i assure you they look great even if pictures are naff..

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk103/bosco_018/BILD0528.jpg

nismo,will let you know when i contact the supplier as i might need a couple more and am not sure if he stocks them...

I like.

cool

not sure whether or not to do the top brake lights....

I like, but would stop there otherwise might look over the top with the window brake light too, looks awesome tho

Looks excellent, good work. 'How To' with details of where to get led's if your willing to share.

These look far more subbtle than the the overexposed photo s
and as far as doing the brake lights .. i ve discovered its a far more difficult job as there is nt the same access without removing the lens.Decided to go with led bulbs in these....

for tonyd20vt..

the link is here

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2X-Rear-Brake-Ligh...A1%7C240%3A1318

yer, i know they must look naff stuck on !!!!

these must be cut at the end of the 27 th led with a very sharp knife or you ll end up with a short and the last 3 leds wont work..test them after.

i used the handle of a cheap tea spoon bent at 90 degrees on the end to remove a part of the lens divider inside the light to allow the led s to pass through it and form the ring.
(heat it up and burn out a pathway with medical precision)
once slipped in the led s will hold themselves in place firmly... test and fit..The first one took me hours , but once i d worked out the above the second was on in no time.

Got to say, this transforms the back end of the coupe and is well worth the effort...

They look very nice Bosco I think a matching set in the top lights would look even better.

I'm liking these, subtle yet stylish

just a thought tho, if you match the top lights so you have rings in both, how difficult would it be to have

outer ring bottom - with indicator/reverse/fog as normal
outer ring top - but outer ring as side light, then inner bulb as brake light (so fully lit like normal)

does that make sense?

Ninja

there is a bit of a how to and a link to led s 3 posts above...any problems ,ask me.
it s a £20 mod and i m not doing the top lights or making the rings look/work like after market kits...(problem with aftermarket kits is they have silver rings and i wanted a completely standard look)

with this mod and lights on you end up with 4 red appearing lights (the bottoms with a ring arround)and when you revearse or indicate the bottom light turns white or yellow where it should do and the the ring brightness is dwarfed by these...
i guarantee your car will look more squat,purposefull and bang up to date...yet still standard .

i like the idea, but im (as per other threads) not keen on seeing the leds themselves. i woner if a ring of perspex or similar in front of the led,s would return an OE look?

i'm gonna do both just so they match up , looking good so far bosco

owl 10,
cant stress enough the led s are very subtle as there s 27 of them and the bottom lights look red at night as i didnt partition the leds off inside. the leds are clear and the lights look as standard when not powered up.
i dont think youll manage to slip perspex in but if you remove the lens s there is room to get ared angel eye in at 80 to 85 mm circumferance.

nismo,
you ll have to remove lens to do the top lights and if you want just the ring look you ll have to find some way of sectioning the light off inside the unit

are the rear lights sealed like the front ones? (i.e. silicone?

what is the best way to seperate them?

Ninja

i did nt attemt removal as apparently its not for the faint hearted !!!.... it looked like the lens was pressed in to the backing flange maybe whilst heated...

"pfoe" has removed them with some sort of heat cutter ...

There is no way to remove the lens cover easily.

I used a hacksaw for one and a hot wire cutter for another.

Both a total ballache and unless you were unbelievably skilled nigh on impossible to refit them neatly.

Walked away from the car with lights on and by 5 meters the lights form perfect bright led circles and i just had to find a way to do the top set i d been scratching my head over....
,
I ve sussed it, and its via a slit i can expand at the top back of the fitting ...simply feed them in and they ll hold themselves in position
Be done next week and i ll put a video up..

Why the sudden fascination with LED's and angel eyes etc etc ????????

Whats next ? Under car Neons

under car Neons , no never

See all i was thinking of doing now is taking the lens of the spae set of rear lights i have then putting them on my rears of my other set so that all the rear lights are redlooking when off as i hate the standard ones, then put yellow bulbs in the indicators so they show through orange then the reverse light will just be bright red, not legal but nevermind.

All 4 lights completed ,

this gives an insight into how its done..

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk103/bosco_018/BILD0531.jpg

as you can see i removed a bit of the back of the lens to slot the led s in .

power on at test bench !

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk103/bosco_018/BILD0533.jpg

All four fitted & working......

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk103/bosco_018/BILD0535.jpg

I ve used a diode and a resistor so these are now used as stop/tail rings instead of the bulbs which can simply be plugged back in to revert to standard should it be necesary for mot....

cheap mod , but do you rate it !!!!

very nice job bosco and they do look well worth the time and effort m8

Think he might .Ive got enough to do on my coupe don't need any more .Need to do some

I really like how they look, bosco is there any chance of you posting a vid on youtube with the lights operating different functions, tail, stop, indicators etc?

Nice, i'm doing it sod it lol, but all lights when off will have red lens's as i had a little play yesterday and now have red lens's all round so should look good.

stevo,

rather you than me on removing len s and if you fit led s and drive with lights on, as will soon be a legal requirement, all lights appear red anyway. 4 hours and £42
see s the leds fitted and working as a diy job....

johny,

will try but have never uploaded to you tube before, but i can tell you at night they look exactly like the ones for sale at £250, if not better as there are more than twice the number of led s which gives a brill effect on the light housing recess

I think they look superb mate . I bought a pair of the LED strips with the intention of just doing the lower lights but now I want to do the whole set after seeing those photos .

Baz

and now my first u tube adventure....

hope it works ...

done in day light as camera overexposes at night !!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sc1enhPaIc

Looks spot on to me.Not too over the top.

hey bosco they get a big they look awesome.

V cool mate, nice n subtle

You got a wiring diagram for how you used them for normal lights and brake lights dude? I'm going for the same but with red lens all round, just means my reverse light wont be white but hey ho lol, yeah so wiring diagram pleeeeeeaaaaaasssse???

I was having a wee practise at melting the required holes on a spare indicator/foglight today. And after giving the light a trial run on a battery i`m well impressed .

If my second strip of LED`s arrive soon i`ll hopefully have all my rear lights converted by the week-end and i`ll get some pics up .

Thanks Bosco for coming up with this solution to updating to LED rings while still keeping the standard look .

Baz

Nice one Baz,

was wondering ,did you use the led s off my e bay link ?
helps to oil them slightly to feed them in easily and the top set of lights are a breeze after the bottoms !!

As far as the wiring diagram goes...

you ll have two wires off each light,
join the four negatives to the lighting earth wire,
the four possative wires are then conected directly to the brake light wire,
then a second feed from the possatives with a 100 ohm 10 watt resistor and a 3 watt diode in line is fed from the side lights .(diode used to stop brake light feed feeding power back to side lights)
remove standard bulbs.....hey ho you re off.

sorry about naff music on u tube, i was just learning how to add it and thats what i ended up with !!!

Yeah I used the same LED`s . I`ve got one side done just now clicky and the lenses on the other side are prepared,i`m just waiting on the other set of LED`s to come to finish it off (hopefully tomorrow). I originally had a pair of 64 LED bulbs in for my stop/tail lights so i`m just going to keep the brake light side of the bulb connected and run the power for the tail lights to the new LED rings.

Are your strips slightly overlapping (not that it shows) at the top Bosco? I`m assuming that cutting at the 27th LED is the best compromise between having all the LED`s working and being able to fit it in the light .

Looking forward to seeing them at night now .

Baz

27 was perfect on all my lights if you mess getting them seated ..... looks good !

Nice esprit in background, but whats the other wine one ???

I`ll try giving them a wiggle about then,maybe just needs a bit of fine tuning .



It`s an old Bristol (I think it`s a 405 ). The Esprit is my Dad`s,but it`s a non-runner just now .

Baz

Done my top rears today but gotta say the 100ohm resistor may not be enough as mine defo brighten up when brakes are pressed but not as much as in your vid bosco so think i'll go with 150ohm see how it looks me thinks, last thing i want is someoe plowing into my ass saying didnt relise you were braking lol.

stevo...
the resistor is only correct when all four are coupled , not just two... as you increase the resistance, the leds will be dimmer and thus you can "adjust" the brightness differance between side lights and brake lights.....
its the side lights your adjusting as the brakes are fed 12volt for max brightness ...

I know mate lol funnily enough i'm an electrical engineer and had to figure it out myself in the end anyway, i'm a bit impatient lol and couldn't wait for the wiring diagram

Still think you should do wiring diagram on paint and post it up cos if anyone doesn't have electronic kow how they're gonna struggle.

Here`s a couple of pics of my lights.

(i`ve still to rotate the LED bar in the lower left light to put the small gap horizontal)

(i`ve sorted the rather dodgy overlap on the top light now )



I trimmed my lower LED bars down to 24 LED`s as I was having a problem fitting them in with the divider plate. Unfortunately this left a slight gap in the ring of LED`s so I`m going to put the gap in-line with the light divide to try and mask it .

Baz

You can get them in without having overlap too best way tho is to cut off allthe old bulb holders in brake lights and take lens off bottoms as i'm going for red len's all round its made mine 10 times easier.

Baz, 27 led s was perfect if they re seated correctly...i did nt say they were easy to fit !!!!!

I guess i`m just too impatient lol . I might get another couple of LED bars and give it another go sometime but i`m happy with them for now.

Baz

I finished mine last ight and the 10watt resistors snap after not long so i got some 1k (1000 ohm) resistors out of an alarm panel and they dimme them so much better and you only need 2 and 2 diodes as each side of mine are wired in parallel, will put up some pics tomorrow with me new wheels hopefully.

Looks great, do you have another ebay link to the LED.

250369065008, type in on ebay go to shop and they are in there...
had stuff off him recently and he s ok but delivery is as he states..near 14 days...

what about a yellow ring, inside the red ring, is strong enough to look yellow, when the glass is red ?.

hmm, no reply :-D then i did the test, take a look
pic1

Looks good mate,I might be tempted to do the same with mine .

Baz

I got a pair of LED strips from here as my original ones had a faulty section that I only noticed after cutting .

They`re only 30 LED`s long so you only need to cut off the last three LED`s and they`re a good bit cheaper than the first 2 sets I bought . Also delivery took around 10 days from China,which isn`t bad considering the other ones took 14 days and were in the UK!

Baz

wish you had posted this earlier as i just bought two sets from the original supplier last night. 10 days from china is very good, sometimes you can be waiting for months if it goes on ferry.

just looked at bosco`s movie on youtube and stumbled across this one

>> other similar LED lights project here <<

good work mate, they bring the rear end up to date. you'd never guess its a diy job unless you remove the lights.

another option i was thinking of was you can buy universal rear lights, in various sizes/standard bulb or led/clear or red lens. i guess they're aimed at the kit car market (and a few for motorcycles). here is an example

http://www.getgeared.co.uk/LOUIS_LED_Fire_Circle_Rear_Motorcycle_Light

as you can see, this one does the tail and brake lights in one unit just like the coupe. not bad for 25 quid? i'm sure with a bit of searching, you could find some with the right size and style for anyone.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RDX-LED-95mm-Lamp-...=item5ad2518fe7

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/4-Kit-Car-Rear-Tai...h=item4a9e69b36

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LED-REARLAMP-TRAIL...=item48380ebcfe

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ROUND-REAR-TAIL-LI...=item563956046d

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/COMMERCIAL-REAR-LA...=item3a56cc83b1

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/APRILIA-CLEAR-LENS...=item1c100ca6fd


something like this

if your on drugs theres these

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ferrari-599-GTB-Fi...=item56390cd3f4

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ferrari-355-360-55...=item56390d21d6

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/FERRARI-3...sQ5fAccessories

dont know if this is any new news but they use original coupe lights on there quad clusters

http://www.mgtf.be/MO_EX_LR_main.html

lol, if i could afford them, i could afford the rest of the ferrari as well. there are a few interesting examples here

http://www.s-v-c.co.uk/lights_rear.html

check out the ultrabright led mix n match outers and inners. the biggest problem i can see, would be finding the right size. i'm not too sure how big the mount hole is (and its too bloody cold to strip it down and measure anyway )

think it's 98mm

The only problem I can see is they don't supply the mounting cups for them.

You can buy the exact same set from Flav who also supplys the fitting cups.

But £300 for a set of lights that only cost £187 from hella is a bit steep IMHO.

But do agree the modified standard lights look good seen Baz's in the flesh at the christmas meet and they do look very nice