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1973 Dodge Dart – LED lighting

Recently I decided to have a look at improving the lighting on the ’73 Dodge Dart.
Starting out slowly with the turnsignal lights, I purchased some LED lightbulbs to test with. I got myself some White dual filament LED bulbs and also a number of Red dual filament LED bulbs.

Below are the results of the lighting change;

Stock regular light bulbs in city-lights / turnsignal housings
Compare the White LED bulb in driverside turnsignal housing
Darkened close-up of the White LED bulb.

Some photos with varying exposure and darkness showing the LED lights and the headlights combined;

I also tried the red LEDs in the taillights, but the photos don’t clearly show enough change compared to the stock light bulbs.

Darkened view of the Red LED bulb
View of the Red LED bulbs in the taillight housings

One thing became clear that the Red LEDs didn’t ‘flash’ like original lightbulbs do.
Instead of blinking ‘brighter’, the LEDs just blinked entirely OFF and ON.

Also with 4 LEDs installed in the car, the flasher-unit didn’t work anymore either. I somewhat expected this but still had hope it would work since the flasher kept working with the white LEDs on the front.

Conclusion;
The Red taillight LEDs need to be differently wired, in order to blink properly as expected.
Also the flasherunit needs to be changed out for one that works with the lower power consumption of the LEDs.

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