LED Brake/Turn/BU/Signal Conversion

Rules of ordering LEDs:

  1. With LEDs you always want to match the bulb color to the lens color. If the lens is red, order a red led. If the turn signal housing is clear, order amber. If your brake light housing is clear, order red. So on, so forth.
  2. Order all of the same brand / brightness / style. If you don’t the lights will look at varying brightness or exposure.

Parts list I used:

Front Turn Signals: Sylvania 2057A – Amber Color (comes in a pack of 2) (1 pack req)
Front Side Markers: Sylvania 194A – Amber Color (comes in a pack of 1) (2 packs req)

Rear Turn Signals: Sylvania 2057A – Amber Color (comes in a pack of 2) (1 pack req)
Rear Side Markers: Sylvania 194R – Red Color (comes in a pack of 1) (2 packs req)
Rear Brake Lights: Sylvania 2057R – Red Color (comes in a pack of 2) (1 pack req)
Rear Backup Lights: Sylvania 1156 – White Color (comes in a back of 2) (1 pack req)

Rear Brake Light – Top Mount: Sylvania 3156R – Red Color (comes in a pack of 2) (1 pack req)

 

The conversion is pretty straightforward, except for the fact the original bulbs sit lower so you can twist them in. The new bulbs you cannot twist them in because the connector height is too large. You MUST cut away at the connector with a razor knife so you can twist them in.

See how deep the metal housing sits inside the connector? That’s how much material you must remove from the connector to get the new ones to seat properly.

 

See the first two photos of the sockets below. I marked with a black marker what areas need to be trimmed down. The last 2 pictures show the trimming with the socket installed.

This was required on my back up lights and turn signals for the front and rear. The rear brake lights did not require this as they were a shorter socket.

 

Now test all the lights!

LED on the left, Incandescent on the right!

 

Now the turn signals aren’t going to work properly once they all have been replaced with LEDs. You will need a 2 prong, solid state flasher that looks like this:

Part # I ordered is EF32RL, You will need 1 for the turn signals, and one for the hazards.
Both are located under the driver side dash, one is in a metal clip with a connector, that’s for your turn signals. The other is on the right side on another distribution block. That is for the hazards.

Note it was easy to change the turn signal one. The hazard one is almost impossible. I ended up using a prybar to pull back the distribution block to make just barely enough clearance for the new flasher.

I did not have any issues with my side markers, but  in case you have problems with the side markers not working with the headlights/turn signal on…..here’s a solution for some vehicles as pointed out by Robert:

Robert Spremulli – LED bulbs are one of the best things I ever did to update my TA. One word of advise…if the camaros are anything like the TA’s, even a solid state flasher will not cure your blinker issues. The problem lies with the wonderful wiring design on the third gen front blinkers. The side markers in the front have no ground wire. It uses the front turn signal bulb itself as it’s ground, which is how GM got a single filament 194 bulb to blink…and since LED lights don’t work like normal bulbs, when you replace them all, the sidemarkers lose their ground signal and cause the blinkers to not work.

My solution…rewire the side markers so they come on as a running light only and don’t get the blinker signal from the front parking lights. All you have to do is cut the wire that gives the blinker signal and ground it to the engine bay somewhere.

 

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