Here's how I converted my side marker lights to strip style LED, special thanks to TwoTone Trike aka Tony for offering me an extra set in case I messed up! This cost less than $25 in parts to complete.
You will need:
1) From SuperBrightLeds.com 'SWFLS-A30-WHT - Amber', quantity 2
2) From Amazon.com '
Install Bay 89-00-9031 ABS Plastic 12 X 12 X 1/8-Inch'
3) Various tools to cut, sand, file, solder, R&R lights
Pic of LED strip light:
Pic of black ABS plastic sheet:
Remove side marker lights, you only need to remove four screws per side and a few trim pieces:
First make your rough cuts and remove the bulk of the housing. unlike I did, take note of which side is which because you are removing the area that has the L and R markings, lol. Fortunately I was taking a lot of pictures and was able to figure it out.
Next do your final filing/sanding, finished housing next to stock housing. The cut-segments in the LED strip are two inches, this lets you have the strip three segment long, or six inches and still fit in the housing. I cut the opening six and a half inches long to give me a quarter inch space on each end.
Both housings modified. The width of the opening of the housing is 20mm which lets you have three strips high because the strips are 5mm wide, that will work well.
Cut two strips from the ABS sheet, measure everything several times before cutting.
Make sure when cutting the LED strips to size you cut exactly where it says. As a test I cut closer to the LED at the end of a cut-segment to see if I could squeeze one more full segment in there but that last one stopped illuminating.
Here is how I positioned and wired the strips. I made the center one smaller to sort of mimic how an incandescent bulb is brighter in the center where the actual bulb is. You see this often with LED assemblies on cars, trucks and buses where they'll have a tighter grouping in the center for this effect. Note that I cut two slots where the cord will exit the housing and secured it with a zip-tie to the ABS backing.
Here's the housing completed and epoxied together. The black plastic on the housing is ABS so you can glue back together with black plumber cement, model glue or epoxy. I used epoxy to avoid any chance of fumes fogging up the amber plastic.
For the connector I snipped off the bulb socket then cut the LED wire to the same length as the Honda connector, that should give me enough slack for... whatever.
Finally make your last solder connections, heat-shrink them and you're done. I positioned the original black plastic wire sleeve mid-point and taped the ends in place to keep it there for further protection.
And finally the before and after. As you can tell the LED conversion is much brighter and is more attention getting with the many individual points of light reflecting around in there which is a great thing for visibility!
Find This Item on Amazon:
, and I might as well order the red ones to do the saddlebags and trunk sides while I'm at it.
. Just ordered the correct outward facing style and will stick with two rows.
