Hacks Are Unacceptable....

[wings&wheels]

..unless they are mine

Chasing down a ground issue on the old BMW grew into cleaning the reflectors and the stop light one was finally beyond serviceable...sitting there, looking at my paint shelf and, not wanting to remove the old housing to do a proper refinish, noticed a package of reflective tape I had bought, and tried one. Works great! Yes, I have switched most of the old fleet to LED's with a LOT of trial and error to retain the stock appearance.

 

[Cujet]

Wow, what a cool idea! It is not easy to refinish a flash chromed, plastic reflector with anything useful. Thanks for sharing that idea. I'd love to see a pic of it in action.

 

[meep]

yes please, would like a in-use photo!

 

[Rand]

is that an led bulb? or whats the wattage on incandescent.

 

[JTK]

Looks perfect!!

It's only temporary unless it works.

 

[wings&wheels]

is that an led bulb? or whats the wattage on incandescent.

The bottom stop light is a Sylvania Zevo LED 1156, the top position light and middle reverse light units are from Superbright LED's. The top is a 67 and the middle is another 1156. I spent a lot of time trying to duplicate the stock look (brightness, color, minimal bright or dark areas) as much as possible except for brighter stop lights.

 

[wings&wheels]

As requested. This is the right side, I wound up doing both. The dark spot, where the heat sink is on the led, is less noticeable outdoors and at a slight distance. They are very bright though. That said, United Pacific makes a quality set of 1156's that don't have the heat sinks at the top of the bulb and look almost identical to an incandescent bulb behind a lens...not sure if it worth the effort, but I am a bit of a perfectionist..

If you try this, two tips;
1) judicious use of heat helps the stickers conform to the reflector
2) the reflective stickers are almost brittle when removed from the backing. I tried to trim one end, you can see in the first pic, and even with a sharp hobby knife, it was tough getting a clean cut...but nobody will know but you.

 

[Cujet]

I am going to try and remember this "hack". I love it. Good job!

 

[DGXR]

I love this hack and the results are great! Well done. With the reflective chrome failing, another option might be to sand & paint the reflective curves with a super white paint... I imagine the results would be similar. Thanks for posting the pics.

 

[RoadDukie]

Here's another "hack" if it turns out you've got a problem with the wiring or the switch: