Carmine
Old Man with a Hat
I'm not really into the full LED conversions, so perhaps this is a known issue? I thought I would try a pair in my 69 Newport convertible because I knew I'd be driving late at night and I keep forgetting to fix the dash lights until I need them. Yes I'm sure I could have bought them cheaper online.
Anyways I picked up a set of the Sylvania blue lights at AutoZone. Wasted a whole bunch of time troubleshooting a blown fuse until the issue dawned on me. The OEM glass bulbs have contacts that fold in either direction against the glass envelope. For God knows what reason, the LED lights have contacts that wrap all the way around the bulb base. I can only assume there are models of the vehicles where the female end of the connector only has power on one side of the terminal, but that isn't the case on this design. ( I wish there were way too integrate photos into the text, so I'll just call this fig. 1)
Of course once you know there's power on both sides, you realize that inserting the bulb with contacts on both sides is essentially a dead short, blowing fuse immediately. Once you know the cause, the fix is simple enough.. simply Bend The Wire to contact only one side of the base, as on the OEM bulbs.
As for the lights themselves, a humongous Improvement although the dimming range is probably about 10% now, but I don't know who dims the incandescent bulbs anyways. At some point I will probably seek out some green ones, but it's low on my priority list.
Anyways I picked up a set of the Sylvania blue lights at AutoZone. Wasted a whole bunch of time troubleshooting a blown fuse until the issue dawned on me. The OEM glass bulbs have contacts that fold in either direction against the glass envelope. For God knows what reason, the LED lights have contacts that wrap all the way around the bulb base. I can only assume there are models of the vehicles where the female end of the connector only has power on one side of the terminal, but that isn't the case on this design. ( I wish there were way too integrate photos into the text, so I'll just call this fig. 1)
Of course once you know there's power on both sides, you realize that inserting the bulb with contacts on both sides is essentially a dead short, blowing fuse immediately. Once you know the cause, the fix is simple enough.. simply Bend The Wire to contact only one side of the base, as on the OEM bulbs.
As for the lights themselves, a humongous Improvement although the dimming range is probably about 10% now, but I don't know who dims the incandescent bulbs anyways. At some point I will probably seek out some green ones, but it's low on my priority list.
