looks great much easier with the bulb swap than the led strip
will definitely do this on my car too ... does anyone know how long will those LED bulbs last? will any type of BA9s LED bulb work on this?
should last quite a bit- i have them on all my cars now as my lic. plate light as well as my interior lighting...i believe it will even outlast the regular bulbs
I just swapped out my H6W incandescent bulbs for a pair of the LED bulbs recommended by Rpalomo, and I will say it is a vast improvement. Thanks, Rpalomo, for the suggestion. It took me about 40 minutes to do both bulbs, and I did not remove the wheels. Directly swapping bulbs represented a good compromise for me, but the results are inferior to those Trent obtained using LED strips running down the entire length of the lens. If you have the knowledge, dexterity, and patience, I would recommend using the LED strips. One think I will note is that a fair amount of dexterity is definitely required, especially if the wheels are not removed. Reaching into the wheel well, up through the access panel and back down to the position light socket requires some bending in ways the human hand was not intended to bend. I am amazed that anyone has successfully installed the LED strips without removing the wheels. That said, I have 10 thumbs, so no one should benchmark against my successes and failures
Awesome DIY lighting improvement. The LED bulbs are hit and miss on how long they last. I actually still have LEDs from the linked website that are still working from 3 years ago. haha. I also bought LEDs off of Amazon and Ebay for my S1rr and other cars/trucks. 90% of them work amazing. Had a couple go out after about 3-4 months. No biggies since they are really cheap. Aloha, Will
Not really. Just remember to taper the end of the strip so it slides in with ease. And have a few spare 5amp fuses handy. I blew one during my first attempt. Thats about it. Good luck.
Just picked up on this older thread. Did you have to disconnect the battery as recommended in the manual before you changed out the bulbs? Thanks!
For the bulbs you will be fine with the battery connected, but for the LED strips you had better or be OK with finding and changing the fuse for the parking lights. ...when in doubt just flip off the master switch under the front hood, just make sure you have the radio code!
I have done just the LED bulb and the light is not bright enough for me. I want to see how much brighter the led strip is.....my question is, where do you solder the wire to the H6W bulb? Does anyone have a picture of this? Thanks!
If you cant look at a H6W and know where to solder, may I recommend that you get someone else to do it. The H6W is an industry standard and and yields 10k pages of datasheets and the like in "google". If you do it yourself, make sure you have several spare fuses Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Trent, when soldering the red wire to the H6W bulb, did you solder the wire to the "attached" filament in the center of the H6W bulb or did you remove the filament from the base inside center and solder the red wire directly to the base of the bulb? I soldered to the attached filament today and it works, just worried if it will hold....
Thanks! I will do the right side that way. I completed the left side today...it looks incredible! TIP: To prevent flexing and having the rubber tube bunch up I wrapped the tube with 1 thin layer of clear packaging tap. It prevented flexing and allowed me the slid the tube all the way to the end without an issue. I did blow 3 fuses though on the install...haha
Great job, this is a hard DIY, glad you stuck with it. 3 fuses; LOL, your a big person for admitting to such. Take some pics of the final install LRED strip on in dim lighting. Would love to see them.
Hi Trent. I just acquired my new ride, a 2007 F430 and wanted to get started right away on installing the LED strips to replace the H6W position lights. I even ordered the strips in advance but upon opening the inspection cover on the passenger side, I noticed that the socket (far right) has 4 wires and doesn't seem to budge when turned counter clockwise. Any suggestions. I didn't want to proceed further by removing the wheel. I've attached a photo for your reference. Thx for any advice you can offer. Gary Image Unavailable, Please Login
The 4+ purple wire socket is your HID interface. It will give you a bit of a shock, I recommend not messing with it. You missed step #10 from the first page of the DIY: "10. Remove parking light cover, which is a rubber cap (this is all covered quite nicely in A1)" Maybe its a Rubber Plug. Just grab and pull, maybe with a twist, I don't recall. Here is a graphic: Image Unavailable, Please Login
Trent. Thx for identifying the position light socket and avoiding a potential nasty shock! On hindsight, if I had taken the wheel off, I may have located the black plug. Well, weekday project coming up after arming myself with spare fuses and a couple of H6W bulbs. Many thanks.
