I was looking on at corvette forum.com (sorry) and saw a post about LED lights for interior and exterior lights. For a 1979 corvette including dash, all the gauges, side marker lights, tail lights and licence plate for $290 bucks. Does this sound fair? Do you know anywhere else I could get some? They look alot brighter than original and draw less current. Just thinking.

 

I've seen lots of folks using this site: http://superbrightled.com/

Don't know about prices but quality is supposed to be good. LEDs are more expensive than incandescents.

 

'Ya want LED tail lights?

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=93263

You can buy these and get intimate with your Corvette or get the ready made ones. These will fit in the existing openings with very little work.

 

You might want to consider a search on eBay for "LED bulbs white 1895" ...or whatever bulb number you are interested in. We recently restored the dash in a 1970 Corvette and replaced all the bulbs with LED bulbs. They look great (they do not seem to react to the instrument light dimmer, though). By the way, there were about 22 or so 1895 bulbs involved here and we had to remove and re-solder most all of the bulb socket bottom contacts. many of them just broke off the end of the wire as we were trying to re-install in the cluster and since they are so hard to get to we removed and re-soldered all of them before putting in the new LED bulbs. It takes a steady hand and small iron to solder the small socket contact back to the wire. It must be done in the car since the socket and contacts are a part of the harness (best done by 2 people), but in the long run it's worth it (even if you replace the bulbs with non-LEDs). After doing one or two the others are easier. ...or you could consider using a new replacement wiring harne$$. :-)

We found many different options here for LED bulbs, depending on the bulb number. We used 1895 bulb replacements that have 5 LEDs per bulb: 4 shining to the sides and 1 shining "up" from the base. You'll see what I mean when you do the eBay search. They look great. (Be sure to get the WHITE light versions!) Here is one example that is current now...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/10-pc...ht_2041wt_1044

That is what we used. The really-white glow in the cluster is very nice.These are 10 for $20. We used that vendor (EnkMall) and free shipping from Hong Kong took less than 2 weeks.

One more thing, LED bulbs are polarized: they will shine only if the PLUS contact is on the PLUS side of the socket (no problem with bayonet-based bulbs such as 1895s but very important when the bulb can be inserted in either way, such as with 168s or 194s). It will do no harm to insert backwards to do trial and error testing.

Also, we hand-tested every new bulb (LED or not) before insertion because it is so hard to replace them. We did find one bulb in about 40 that would not light. Just something to consider.

 

DouginSC,
Just bought all the ligts for my car. Excellent sight. Once I put them in, I will let everyone know how they look and take some before and after pictures. I think I bought the right ones and it cost me about $160

 

THAT is a LOT of money for light bulbs.

 

Don't tell the wife! I am just having fun.....I am running out of easy things to do with the car. Runs good and is fun to drive.

 

She probably already knows and figures it is better than you hanging out at the TaTa bars....