I recently cleared out the tailights on my 98. I put in polarg 1156 27W amber bulbs for the turn signals. The problem is that the blinker is not very visible during the day...especially in broad daylight. You can only see an outline of the bulb blinking. The blinker does not light up uniformly not even in the evening. I used the acrylic fluorescent light cover sheet. Is there something that I might have missed? Thanks.

 

I too am looking for a brighter or better bulb to fix the dull amber in the rear turn signals.

 

use an amber bulb. better to be safe than to be cool and get into an accident or to get a ticket for it.

 

i have the same problem....at night it is nice and visible but at day it's like you have too look hard.....the florescent sheet i used was more white then clear as others have them.....damn me...i bought both the sheets too........

Chris

 

Maybe there is a way to rewire these lights?
install the same bulb as the ones in the side markers with the dual fillaments and somehow rewire them to make them brighter?

I think we all use amber bulbs. I do, but it is just not bright enough.

 

yeh, that kind of sucks.. but it's not that bad.. not everyone signals in the 1st place... it's just a little hard to see it when it's very sunny outside.. but it's noticeable.. at night it's good

 

I'm not happy with my blinker's either. I used the amber bulbs and didn't like the way you can see the orange when not activated. I painted a translucent silver paint over the bulb so it's mirror-finished when not activated, but shines just as bright and just as orange as before. My ongoing mission is to get the orange to shine brighter and fill the whole turn signal region. I'm thinking of trying to double ply the plastic panel, or spray some reflective clear paint on the lense or something. I'll figure this out.

 

I think the problem is that the lense you removed had many more reflecting/refracting surfaces on it that diffracted the light evenly out of the old lense. Now that the lense has been removed, the remaining (replaced) plastic doesn't have the same light bending characteristics the old part had.

If this is true, changing bulbs/rewiring ain't gonna help. The only thing you could do is (re)introduce some of the relfectivity/diffraction characteristics back into the lense housing. Those engineers put that plastic in there for a reason -- it spreads the light from the small bulb across a much larger surface area -- 2x6 inches, or whatever it is.

Maybe we've found a use for all those old non-DC clear corners laying around. We can cut them up and stick them to the inside of our tails to spread the light from the yellow bulbs

Thanks for pointing this out. I was ready to clear my tails but I think I'll wait a little bit until I have some more information about this issue.

 

Maybe it has something to do with the light cover sheet itself? I installed the cover sheet so that the flat side is touching the lens. Did anyone install it the other way? How are the results. I also took out the red piece with the 194 bulb.

 

There is a company which makes bulbs like this, amber with a silver coating to hide the yellow color from view when not in use. Sorry I don't have the link off-hand, but just thought I'd let you know that these are in commercial production.

 

I experimented with double thickness of fourescent light cover thinking it would diffuse the light better ... I was wrong I'm still working on other ways, I will keep everyone posted ...

 

I looked closely at the lens structure and I can see that the yellow part of the lens is a fresnel type. This means it has a set of concentric circles that bend the light. Look closely at the lens and you'll see what looks like a whole bunch of bulbs in the socket. Look even closer and you'll see the concentric rings.

I think that if someone takes one of those "I can see you around the corner from the back of my RV" plastic lense things, cuts the center out of it, and uses it for the replacement clear part (or attaches it to the clear part), that will solve this problem.

I feel fairly confident that this approach is correct. I will try it once I get a spare set of rear lights so that, if I mess it up, I have something to replace the lenses with.

Anyone want to volunteer their lenses for me to play with? PM me and I'll give it a shot.

 

When I had my red/clears on my last maxi, I used APC red bulbs for my turn signals and they were perfect. Looks 10 times better than amber also Legal in my area...

 

Don't they make an Amber LED? Might work out for ya.

 

Where can I get one of those "'I can see you around the corner from the back of my RV' plastic lense things"? If I can find one, I can try it on one of the pairs I get and let you know how it works out - I think that you have hit a HELL of an idea there ...

 

APC Bulb?
can you be more specific?

Also, what LEDs and how would you hook up an LED to a bulb socket?

 

LED Bulb

The just put the LEDs instead of the glass bulb. With LEDs, the bulb doesn't have to warm up, it is an instant bright light.

 

Has anyone tried using LED's? How do they work out? I don't think it has anything to do with the bulb warming up but the reflecting of the light inside of the lens.