Excellent idea!!!! My son has done many of the bulbs in his 240D with LEDs. What about doing the rest of the dash bulbs while you are in there? Are all the bulbs the same? Will LEDs work for the instrument lights with the dimmer?

Dan

 

Thanks, Dan.

After replacing all the bulbs in my instrument cluster last winter concurrently with fixing the clock and odometer gears, I was only dissatisfied with the brightness of the turn signal indicators, so those are the only ones I converted to LEDs. All my other instrument cluster bulbs--and there are three different sizes--are the stock, conventional variety. (The factory-installed warning lights for the oil, coolant, and windshield washer solution levels and bulb failure are LEDs in a fixed module, though, oddly enough.)

Good question, I don't know how LEDs used with the rheostat would perform. I do know the LEDs I purchased vary their brightness to a degree with voltage, but I don't think they have the range of an incandescent; at some point I'm sure they go dark rather than continue to dim infinitely like conventional bulbs.

Good road,

 

Hmmmmn,

Sounds like a solution for my unintentional motorcading tendencies!

Thank you! Excellent post!

 

Good one! Never even considered there would be led's for that application. I've only actually seen my turn indicators at night!

 

I'd be more interested in a loud clicker to warn me the signal is on.
My signals only self-cancel in one direction, and I can't seem to remember that, so I am a chronic offender.

 

My signals only self-cancel in one direction, and I can't seem to remember that, so I am a chronic offender.

Mine does the same thing - I think I broke it. I bought a new turn signal switch, but for about 4 months after replacing it, my wheel wasn't centered properly, and I frequently had to turn off the blinkers while the tab was sitting on the steering column tab that's supposed to turn it off automatically. One day I heard a crunch, and it stopped turning off the signals on that side.

Eventually I'll get a new multiswitch, in the mean time I try to remember it doesn't turn off for left hand turns.

 

GlueckAuf never checked back in on this, so I'll update it.

I've replaced my instrument cluster lights with LEDs. The illumination bulbs went to white LEDs, the warning lights and blinkers went to red, blue, amber and green LEDs. The only one left as a bulb is the alternator light, because of the way the Bosch charging system works it has to stay as is.

My cluster uses a mix of 194 and 2721 bulbs. I had to modify the leads on the 2721 bulbs to keep it from blowing fuses. They ship from the factory with the lead wrapped around the bulb base and showing on both sides. That creates a direct short in the cluster lighting circuit. By trimming the lead so it's only on one side, I got it to work. As with most LEDs, they're polarity sensitive, so I had to try the lighting to make sure I had them plugged in right. I now have excellent, very bright lighting for the gauges.

A couple of years ago I bought new color strips for my dash - the old one was broken. The brake pad warning light went from red to amber. The high beam warning light is blue, and the remaining lights are red. I replaced all of them with 194 LEDs and am very happy with the results. Even in direct sunlight the lights are very bright and noticeable. I've only driven it once at night, but I was very happy with the way everything worked. The high beam indicator is bright enough to catch my attention and keep me aware that the high beams are on.

I liked the result so much that I replaced the front and rear sidemarker lights with LEDs, too. Red in the rear, and amber non-polarity lights in the front. Loving them, too. The color with a regular filament bulb is more orange-red. With the red LEDs it's a deep red color. The sidemarker lights have gone from pretty yellow to a rich amber color. Because they're non-polarity bulbs, they still work as blinkers (I have mine rigged up to blink with the blinkers).

I'm still working on a final design for the brake bulbs. I've gotten as far as working with the resistor to keep the cruise control operational, but it gets very hot and I don't want it in my trunk. I may have to just do a coin toss and decide whether I want cruise control or LED brake lights in the end.

 

what is the problem with cruise control when using led's, and were can they be purchased
thanks

 

Run LED's and keep spare globes.

When traveling where tempomat is needed, it takes a few minutes changeover.

OR

get the cyclop 3rd brake light and run a globe (could be enough for tempomat)

OR

just add a globe anywhere in the circuit (if a single globe is ok for tempomat).

ALSO

you could play with 5W or 12.5W globes as addition (instead of 21W) to see if tempomat like it.

 

Thanks for your update, Scott - and thanks to GlueckAuf, who has done his usual superb writeup.

In addition now to planning to replace my instrument cluster lamps as recommended here, I also note a color difference in the plastic of my left & right turn indicators. One is the bright green I would expect; the other is a faded, barely noticeable green. I remember years ago my ex doing glass painting, with translucent colors; I thought something like that might work on the faded side, but probably still would not match the good side. Are there any decent replacements for those?

 

I remember years ago my ex doing glass painting, with translucent colors; I thought something like that might work on the faded side, but probably still would not match the good side. Are there any decent replacements for those?

I tried that with several different things, one of the things I specifically tried was the transparent glass color. It came out streaky and the color didn't stick to the plastic very well, and I finally just sucked it up and went and bought new displays from the MB dealer. They didn't cost much, but the new front plastic was marked for an O2 sensor I don't have, so I just slipped the colored plastic out of the new ones and put it into my old ones. They now apparently color the brake pad warning light amber, where on my original ones it was red. But now my green blinkers are green, and with the green LEDs lighting them up, they're GREEN.

 

Good report, Scott, and sorry I never closed the loop with this one, buds.

In bright sunlight and while wearing sunglasses, I can now clearly see the turn signal indicators. But they're not obnoxiously bright, I have to glance down at them to notice. Still that's a good deal better than what I had before. Even with brand new conventional bulbs, the turn signal indicators were invisible under bright sun. SuperbrightLEDs solved that for me.

As far as a louder clicker dugald mentioned he'd like, I did concurrently install a new flasher relay with this job since I had the instrument cluster out anyway, hoping it might be a bit more audible. But no appreciable improvement there--the new KAE one was no louder than the twenty-three year old original SWF unit it replaced. The new relay's only advantage is that it doesn't go quiet on me. Sometimes while idling at a lengthy red light the old relay's clicker would begin fade to silence for some odd reason, though the turn signal lights would continue to blink. Strange issue, but solved with this new, fairly inexpensive ($23) relay from Autohaus Arizona.

This is about the only experimentation/upgrading I plan on doing with LEDs on my SL. With the turn signal indicators finally visible, I'm satisfied with the way all Benzedrine's lights are performing--at least for now.

Good road,

 

If I was smarter than my camera, I could probably post pics, but when I turn the overhead lights off so the dash lights show up, my camera says Oh, it's dark. I'll turn on the flash. Kind of defeats the purpose of having the overheads off.

 

This is a great idea, if/when I pull the cluster out I'll be changing to LEDs, thanks for the inspiration. Great idea and execution.

 

I wanted to see if I could capture the difference between the LEDs and the regular 194 bulbs used as warning lamps. It didn't, exactly.

The alternator light didn't really do it - it's dim by design. So I temporarily swapped out the seat belt warning light. That really showed the difference between the LEDs and 194 bulbs. Unfortunately, there's so much light that it swamped my camera, and the light looks yellow/orange. You'll have to take my word for it that the light in person is very red, not yellow. It's fully visible even in direct sunlight. The light furthest to the right is a regular 194 bulb. The two lights in the middle are both LEDs.

 

These LEDs are an EXCELLENT solution.

However, on my 560SL I had to modify both types to get them to fit without damaging either the socket or the lamp. As the original poster said they are not an exact fit.

so

On the right LED I had to shave off a slight amount of plastic on each side of the plug-in portion to get it to fit at all. Afterward it worked perfectly.

On the left socket LED I had to reduce the diameter of the semi-circular bezel that fits through the hole so that it would allow the socket to turn after inserting it into position.

You can see the differences yourself with a micrometer in some cases it is substantial.

 

Ok so finished this a couple of weeks ago, and just wanted to share pics and findings. First on my first order I ordered the wrong bulbs, figured it would cost more to send back so I just kept them. On re-order I got out my measuring tools and made sure what I was ordering was the same size as what I was taking out.

So Wedge bulbs were WLED-A6 in the colour that matched the location, so these replaced all but the alt bulb (thought that someone once said something important about it being original...better safe than sorry). These fit perfectly and I can tell you I can see my indicaters in full sun with sunglasses on, just like my Jetta. High beam bulb maybe too bright for night driving, but I only use them to pass.

For the general lighting of the dash I replaced the seed buls in the cluster, the climate control, and the fiber optic spider with 74-wwhp3 mini wedge based bulbs. Now those made a big difference, cluster is much brighter and clearer, I used warmwhite as led's tend to come across as more blue, but they are still cooler toned than the originals. All fit well except climate control bulbs, as they stick out further than the original seed bulbs, so I taped them in. My climate control cluster's light holders are starting to break down from the heat of the bulbs, so I figured this would be a good alternative. For those that need to know yes the dimmer on the dash works with your led's as well

Back of the car, I replaced lic plate bulb 3610-x4 natural white, and driving lights, 4410-x9 red. As you can see lic plate has a much clearer look. Driving lights...a little redder but not a big difference. Notes to these bulbs lic plate are slightly shorter than originals, I needed to bend the contacts. Driving lights are a little bigger, but still worked because of their type of fitting.

Interior, again 3610-x4, natural light. I replaced all the interior lights, I can now see the fuses in the fuse box without a flashlight, and I am happy with the result. Again these bulbs were slightly smaller than the original, but the contacts are easily tightened in the courtesy lights.

Hope this is imformative for the next person, and remember superbrightleds gives you the dimensions on their bulbs, so double check. And if you don't live in the US they don't use UPS International so there are brokerage fees. Go US postal, cheaper and faster in the end. 1st parcel UPS week and a half, 2nd USPS 5 days.

Brent...and I have pictures so it did happen

 

Nice job. Big difference especially on the interior.

 

Very nice results, indeed. Great report!

How well does the rheostat for the gauge illumination work with the LED bulbs?

Good road,

 

The rheostat works perfectly, haved moved it right to the bottom to see if they go out yet, but working smooth in the upper/mid ranges. Forgot to note the top 2 pictures are with and without flash, not before and after.

Ok checked the full range of the rheostat goes from very bright to dim, I seem to remember no light on at all at the bottom of the range before with the standard bulbs.

 

Great, I wasn't expecting that they'd not dim fully, but it makes sense since the cool-running LEDs require so much less juice than an incandescent bulb. I may follow suit with replacing the illumination bulbs. Even with all new standard ones the last time I had the instrument cluster out, they're still dimmer and more uneven than I'd like. Thanks again for the report, Herr Bear.

Good road,

 

You may want to have a couple of interior light lenses/bulb holders on hand in case the little plastic tab that holds it in is weak or breaks when you remove it. I decided to replace all four. They are available at AutohausAZ.

http://www.autohausaz.com/search/product.aspx?sid=sr2ghvahwpyznlfkta2m0em3&partnumber=1268201301

 

You may want to have a couple of interior light lenses/bulb holders on hand in case the little plastic tab that holds it in is weak or breaks when you remove it. I decided to replace all four. They are available at AutohausAZ.

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Good point I had replaced all mine when I purchased my car, cause they had yellowed over the years, and wouldn't stay in place due to some broken clips.

And yes I am one of those people that throw parts at my car :surrender: but I never feel bad replacing old rubber/plastic and my baby seems to like it too

 

Got mine here...going to do the interior first.

Super Bright LEDs ? LED Lights, Bulbs, and Accessories

 

Mmmm...

this sounds like a cool project. Money-wise I am already over the assigned budget to the 107 for this year, so although I shouldn't do it.

How much $ overall approx should I set aside?

Thanks in advance

 

Bought 6 bulbs (2 spares) for the interior for $20 shipped. The lenses/bulbholders from autohausaz were about 5 bucks each.

 

Niiiiice

Looks like a new project on the making.

Thanks.

 

B.Bear,

I noticed you have a CC but still replaced the brake lights. Does the CC still work for you? Scott was worried the CC would stop working for what I read.

Thanks in advance.

 

I didn't replace the brake lights, just the regular lights in the back. I use my cruise control, quite often when I'm on the highway...finds it lesens the speeding tickets. Not electronicly up enough to do the needed soldering to keep the cruise control working.

 

I just ordered a set of LEDs for my instrument cluster. I got the cool white ones low intensity and I also got 2 high intensity bulbs for the turn signals. I will keep you posted.

 

Cool,

did you order the recommended ones by the website? or did you just measure and order accordingly?

Regards