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MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG TD TF 1500 - High Mount Rear Lights

Check out http://www.ttalk.info/Tech/HighMountLights.html for a look at how I did mine. (It was easier to install the lights than to do the webpage.) There's still some cleaning up to do on both the hardware and the software.

Bud
Bud Krueger

Bud:-

Would retrofitting led bulbs into those 3rd-party lights avoid the need to install a brakelight relay?

LED bulbs should suck less current than a pair of filament brakelight bulbs.
Will

Will, you might want to scan the archives on this issue. The answer is 'no'. It's a matter of the angle over which LEDs radiate versus a lamp filament. LEDs would be great if you could guarantee that the viewer is on the axis of the LED.
Bud Krueger

Bud,

It has been interesting to see articles appearing over the past six months that describe lighting manufacturers doing research and anticipating a significant business opportunity as LED tail and stop lights become commonplace in the next few years. One of the motivations is the opportunity for designers to come up with innovative tail and stop light designs.

My recollection is that Osram is doing a lot of this work in Massachusetts, as reported in a Boston Globe article earlier this year.

It would seem the problem with viewing angle can (or has) been solved. Whether this leads to a product we can use in our T cars is an interesting question.

Larry
Larry Shoer

As many LED's I see on 18 wheelers now, they must be doing something right. Maybe they have a lens for each LED that bends the light outward as well as straight back?
Tom

THere are quite a few multi-LED assembly lamps being used today, especially on the rear of trucks/trailers. Will's question was about retrofitting LED bulbs into the 3rd party lamps. That doesn't work.
Bud Krueger

First posted this in 2001 (when I re-wired the TF). Cheap, easy, and they look good.
Many of you know the TF1500 had "reflectors" at the top corners of the tub. Moss sell's these fairly cheap. I simply put led's in mine and hooked into the existing tail lamps. Seems to work pretty well. I also installed a "period" Lucas reversing lamp that is pointed "upward" about "suv level" and pointed at the driver. A little "flash" on that one does wonders at getting people "off my butt"!
Cheers,
David 55 TF1500 #7427
David Sheward

And it will never work, Bud? Come on..
Tom

Tom, never is a tough word. These lights are constructed with the lamp filament normal to the viewing axis. LED bulbs are constructed with the emitting axes in line with the bulb axis. The red lens of the light is designed to work with the radiating properties of the lamp filament. This is a totally different geometry from that of the LED bulbs that Will speaks of.

Bud Krueger
(retired Electro-optics Engineer)
Bud Krueger

This thread was discussed between 19/09/2005 and 21/09/2005

MG TD TF 1500 index

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