79TA7.6
Veteran Member
- Joined
- May 8, 2006
- TDI
- 2003 TDI Jetta, 2002 TDI Golf, 2005 TDI Golf
I have been sick of not being able to see when I back out of my driveway at 5 in the morning. Been dealing with crap reverse backup lights for 6 years now. I bought a set of 2004 lights, the candy cane style, with intentions of making these purely LED with circuit boards and everything. Well, that never happened. Tongsli posted some 1156 LED bulbs for sale and I grabbed them with hopes to be able to install these in the lights. He asked that I document my progress so here it is.
These are my stock lights. Very pathetic.
Looking at the stock lights with stock bulbs:
Looking at the light output of the stock setup:
Looking at the stock housings with LED bulbs:
Looking at the output of stock housings and LED bulbs:
The much better 2004 style housings. Very impressive.
Looking at the 2004 style housings with LED bulbs:
Looking at the output of the 2004 style housings with LED bulbs:
There are two BIG advantages to the 2004 style housings that I noticed right away. The first one is obvious, I was able to open up the fog light hole and install more reverse lights. This was super easy. I just used a uni-bit and drilled them out until I got the correct size. The second advantage is that the clear portions of the housings are a lot more clear than the stock housings. When I had the stocks off the car and was looking them over they seemed to have a blue tint to them. Upon better review of them I was able to see what looked like a diffuser in there which harms the light output. I did not see this in the 2004 style.
The next thing I would like to do to these lights is to add LED blinker lights. When I do this I would also like to see about hooking up a diode and see if I could get even more lighting while reversing. Since the lens is clear for the blinker I think this would help even more.
These picture were taken over the course of two days, but I tried to take them at the same time in order to try to get the same lighting. I know lighting pictures are difficult to capture unless you are able to manually set up your camera, but this is the best I am able to do.
These are my stock lights. Very pathetic.
Looking at the stock lights with stock bulbs:
Looking at the light output of the stock setup:
Looking at the stock housings with LED bulbs:
Looking at the output of stock housings and LED bulbs:
The much better 2004 style housings. Very impressive.
Looking at the 2004 style housings with LED bulbs:
Looking at the output of the 2004 style housings with LED bulbs:
There are two BIG advantages to the 2004 style housings that I noticed right away. The first one is obvious, I was able to open up the fog light hole and install more reverse lights. This was super easy. I just used a uni-bit and drilled them out until I got the correct size. The second advantage is that the clear portions of the housings are a lot more clear than the stock housings. When I had the stocks off the car and was looking them over they seemed to have a blue tint to them. Upon better review of them I was able to see what looked like a diffuser in there which harms the light output. I did not see this in the 2004 style.
The next thing I would like to do to these lights is to add LED blinker lights. When I do this I would also like to see about hooking up a diode and see if I could get even more lighting while reversing. Since the lens is clear for the blinker I think this would help even more.
These picture were taken over the course of two days, but I tried to take them at the same time in order to try to get the same lighting. I know lighting pictures are difficult to capture unless you are able to manually set up your camera, but this is the best I am able to do.
