[T3] Lights

[Sean Bartnik]

Dennis,
It’s interesting - the 12v 21w bulb is pretty much the industry standard for brake lamps and has been for years.  It shouldn’t be any brighter or less bright in our cars than others barring any electrical problems (voltage drops, ground problems, etc) but it does seem that, especially when the sun is brightly shining on the rear of the car, it can be hard to see the brake lights (turn signals too).  I don’t know if it’s poor reflector design or what.  Of course today’s driver is also used to seeing the center stop lamp which has been required on new vehicles since 1985.  

Naturally of course the first step would be to make sure your bulbs are as bright as they can be.  If your reflector housings are corroded that can make the light seem dim.  Also if you have corrosion at the brake switches or at the rear light housings, all that can contribute to voltage drops.

If you do decide to switch to LED, I can’t recommend strongly enough CuLayer LED brake lamps from Jim Franzen.  He makes a super-bright LED module that’s a drop-in replacement for the brake light bulb and runs on 6 or 12v.  He makes it in “dual-filament” and “single-filament” versions.  For late Type 3s you would want the dual-filament version.  For ’69 and earlier you’d want the single-filament version since those cars have a standalone brake light bulb.

The web site is http://culayer.com/product/ba15-hp/ <http://culayer.com/product/ba15-hp/>

At $100 each they aren’t cheap but then again that's still cheaper than your insurance deductible when you get rear-ended.

Here’s what they look like on my ’65:

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-zmWwDK8/0/5feb97ec/XL/i-zmWwDK8-XL.jpg

The photo doesn’t do them justice; they are very bright day or night.  


>  But every time this has happened it's been a
> bright sunny day with the sun to my back. I suspect it's because the
> common driver of 2017 is use to cars and trucks with big bright LED
> lights found on the majority of modern vehicles. Nothing we can do about
> that but it has made me think once agin about changing over to LEDs for
> safety reasons. By the way before anyone ask I have practically new tail
> light lens on it and they are clean on the inside. I think they are
> working about as bright as I can get them in stock form. Has anyone went
> the LED route and if so who did you get your lights from?
> 

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