Sunday, December 2, 2018

LEDing the light shine

As I pondered the woes of my blinkers on the 280z, I decided the next course of action to correct my intermittently malfunctioning blinkers should be to reduce the current that is required to flow through the column switch.  Given the aging wiring and alternator, a complete LED bulb conversion would accomplish this current reduction goal.

The side markers, backup lights, and brake lights would be simple swaps.  The turn signals and front parking lamps required a little more work since the OEM flasher modules require a decent amount of current to operate; if there wasn't enough current flowing the blinkers wouldn't blink!  I placed an initial order from Amazon for 1156 and 1157 bulbs; essentially these two types of bulbs will cover the entire conversion.  I also ordered two LED flashers from CEC Industries as their flasher seemed to be the "gold standard" that many used for these conversions.


I have already tackled the interior bulbs previously (LED there be light!Blinded by the light); this post will focus on the outside indicators.

The choice of bulb is critical in such a conversion, and there are plenty out there.  Let me save you some trial and error: if your car has white plastic or no reflectors in the light housing, use LED's with outward facing LED's.  Some LED's (notably Philips 1156 and 1157 bulbs) only contain rearward facing LED's and require a reflector to be as-bright or brighter than standard filament bulbs.  The final parts list that I used for my conversion is as follows:

As previously mentioned, the physical act of swapping the bulbs was simple.  I used 3M Dielectric Silicone Paste on the base of the bulbs to make sure they maintain a solid, corrosion free connection to the sockets.




The LED's were definitely much brighter than the OEM bulbs, but not obnoxiously so.  This side-by-side of the rear taillights shows the difference (the LED bulbs are on the right while the standard filament on the left).


Next up was the turn signals.  Since the OEM flashers would not operate with these low-current bulbs, I had to swap-in the new LED compatible units.  The new units were not difficult to install as the existing connector would fit the new units.  The new flashers did not come with a mounting bracket, so I fashioned one out of a short piece of aluminum.



Both flashers are within close proximity to each other with one being mounted near the hood release and another being on the inside of the firewall near the BOSCH fuel injection controller.  I had trouble accessing the turn signal flasher on the firewall, so I simply mounted both flashers under the dash near the hood release.


In both cases, the mounting point for the flasher was used as the ground for the third wire on the flashers.

With the flashers in-place, the turn signal bulbs could be swapped.  The can see the side-by-side difference in the front parking lights in the below photo (LED bulb on the right).



With the bulbs swapped and the new flashers installed, it was time for a test drive!  As I drove down the road, I noticed that one of the flashers was making an erratic clicking noise, as-if the blinkers were engaged, yet the turn signals were not flashing.  After some "hands-on" detection I isolated the individual flasher that was making the noise: it was the hazard flasher.  The hazard flashers operated as expected, but when the switch was off the flasher was still clicking.  Due to the low-current requirements of these LED flashers, this clicking could only be due to some current leakage through my hazard flasher switch.  After returning home, I confirmed that there was a small voltage present on the switched side of the connector.  I pondered what to do to correct this situation.  One of the logical solutions would be to open the hazard flasher switch and clean it out.  This did not appeal to me since my switch worked, the switch is complex and also controls the turn signals, and they are not cheap.  I decided that I would introduce a hidden switch that also must be closed to operate the hazard flashers.  Since the hazard flashers are only used in exceptional cases the inconvenience of an extra switch would be minor.

I added the switch to the ground wire on the flasher and let the switch bracket act as the ground connection as well.  This switch was mounted on the original flasher mounting location and is easily reached from the driver's seat.



The addition of this switch solved the incessant clicking sound while driving!

I also set out to swap the headlights to LED units, that post is coming soon and will complete my total LED conversion project for the 280z.



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