Oh and on the subject of front sidelights/indicators, I have fitted LED indicators in LD109 side lights with Chummy headlamps as side and head, but with later lamps you can get reflectors with a pilot light as well so you can keep dip and main if these are the right ones for the nippy? It seems reasonable that the combined side and indicator LED bulbs would be equally up to the job, but I have no experience of them personally.

Location: New Forest

Hello Timothy.
I have modified many Ruby type headlamps with reflectors fitted with pilot bulbs and turned the sidelights into indicators. However I haven't found fitting LED indicator lamps into LD109's straight forward - how did you accomplish it?
Regards
Stuart

Location: Staffordshire - the creative county

Hello Stuart,
Sorry I should have gone into that, I agree it's not straight forward. The lamps had BA9S holders, and I could not find a LED bulb of sufficient wattage (they are usually for replacing 5W side repeaters in moderns. So i machined the centre out of the reflector and soldered in BA15S Holders making sure that they would clear the case, but as far back as possible to get clearance at the front. Best to get the shortest LED's you can get, and this may be problematic for 6 volts. The LED bulbs I used are short, like These, and are fairly close to the lenses, maybe 1/4" clearance. as I say loads of options at 12 volt, but the 6 volt ones seem to be deeper. The Dynamo Regulator conversions ones look like they may fit, but I think if I were doing it again I would make a holder to accept the 40mm indicator boards they do, with the white backing painted silver, and these are available in 6 and 12 volts, but not having tried it I can't comment on the pros and cons of the idea.

Jon here are photos of the rear lights. These are repros, and some original lenses look very deep red in comparison, and may have more of an effect on the colour.

OFF



ON



Hope that helps

Location: New Forest

Thanks for that Timothy. I have used the LED indicator lamps from 'Classic Dynamo........' but I had to use the reflector/bulb holder from the forerunner of the LD109 the LD108 and even then it wasn't straight forward.
Just one note of caution on the output of the lamps - the filament type I understand should be rated at 18watts.
I know Martin Baker of Basingstoke has been down this route and perhaps he could further enlighten us?
Regards
Stuart

Location: Staffordshire - the creative county

well, Timothy, thankyou - that is conclusive proof that no-one ever need to have amber lenses on the back of a vintage.

Obviously, we are tied to the one bespoke product, unless Stuart also does some LED solutions too (I read in another thread, but that admittedly was a very old one)

I was thinking they would be appearing red (as per many american pre 1965 cars over here) but that's a bonus to see!

I did wonder about staying with tungsten and perhaps an amber indicator bulb would have the same effect. But it sounds like the the DRC front sidelight lightboard is too well conceived to not go with (or rather, the hassles of trying to come up with anything else too great to overcome!) so I will probably follow that route with the dedicated LED flasher unit.

Jon, glad I could be of help. I assume in the last part of your post by the DRC front sidelight lightboard you mean the combined sidelight and indicator bulbs? In which case you will need to convert your sidelights to ba15d (two pin) fittings if they are not already of that type. If you mean the 40mm indicator light boards I mentioned earlier, then again it's not a standard fitment into the sidelights but (and i'd stress that I haven't actually physically tried this) as the LD109's (at least the ones I have here) I have are over 40mm in diameter, I don't see any reason why a satisfactory method of holding them in place could not be fashioned.

Location: New Forest

Good point. I'll measure the sidelights. The annoying thing about putting the two pin fittings in is that whilst they can stick in easily with silicon, getting the ground earth sorted seems slightly harder (or beyond the strength of my soldering iron...) unless you know of any reasonably priced three wire options?!

With LED though, do we REALLY need sidelights at all any more, when running a headlight is more advisable and of not much load?

I'm using led pork pie rear lights with original glass lenses. They do look yellow when indicating but are not as bright as I would like, which is really only a problem in bright sunshine. The front sidelights flashing yellow work well. I always stick my hand out for right turns but if you use the correct hand sign for left turns people think you're inviting them to overtake.

Location: Isle of Wight

Louis - useful info. Are you using LED "bulbs" or the 50mm light boards in the porkpies?

Lightboards.

Location: Isle of Wight