LED Interior lights

[Mr Footlong]

Right, had enough of this working malarkey and decided to finish off the lighting this afternoon. I now know exactly what is needed so will list it for others:

2x U426UCW - 42MM 6LED - Front main interior lights.

6x U376UCW - 37MM 6LED - Rear main interior lights, rear boot lights in avant, single in bootlid light in avant, driver's footwell. - 8 needed if wangling double ones in to the numberplate lights like I did.

2x U373CW - 37MM 3LED - Front vanity mirror lights. - 4 needed if NOT wangling double ones in to the numberplate lights like I did.

1x U50155CW - 501/194/T10 5LED Tower - Passenger footwell.

4x The BA9 Ebay jobs for the reading/accessory interior lights.

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I would recommend against getting the U50155CW units for the door lights. Difficult to fit anything much bigger in them that easily IMO and struggled to fill the reflectors at all. Normal bulbs were far more uniform/brighter. Had a couple blown so bought 4 Halfords Heavy Duty ones and fitted those in.

In order to wangle the double LED's in to the numberplate lights, you have to put them in at an angle to get past the bodywork, then using a thin screwdriver, turn them around inside the boot panel.

I will take pics later but bear in mind, I am short of 1 double LED in the boot at the moment so pics won't be 100% correct. I was also pathetically anal as I am and made a little custom reflector housing for the passenger footwell LED as it was so much dimmer than the driver's one, angled so it can pass back up in to the cavity. Will have made only a little difference but would have had me sitting there twitching if I hadn't done it.

The 6LED job in the bootlid is at 45 degrees in order to shine both sides as equally as possible and a touch of superglue used at the ends to hopefully help it stay at that angle with repeated boot closing. Use a smidge of gle on the little tower one in the passenger footwell as it is not a deep fit in to the connector. Also, the tower one is polarity-dependant.

[Mr Footlong]

Photos:

[el_ringo]

The rear plate lights look bonkers bright!

[Mr Footlong]

Yep, don't know if they are frikkin awesome or frikkin hilarious. The pictures don't properly show just how well these light the cabin. The only exception is the front footwell one, waste of time even with the reflector and the colour compared to all the others. Going to look for the closest match normal bulb if possible....

[el_ringo]

Was it easy to get the lamp bits out without damaging anything?

[Mr Footlong]

They were all easy with the exception of the front reading lamps, which just required a little patience

[chunky79]

Great work nick. Thanks for posting all the info up

[Mr Footlong]

Dunc, any chance that you can take a better shot of your numberplate lights tonight with just the 3 LEDs? The other photo you took wasn't in the proper dark so I discounted it straight away . I have to return the bulbs that I haven't used tomorrow so if I am going to switch to the 3led bfor the numberplate I need to know by the morning. As it is a little bit of a flaff to get the LEDs pointing down perfectly, being so wide, I would love to be able to decide whether to bother or not, thanks .

[Ryan_Pestell]

Will take a picture of mine, that are just the 3 LED ones, much more subtle but still bright. but not flood lights like yours

[Mr Footlong]

Can't decide if I actually like the floodlight look. If I get a chance later I might just yank them and stik the 3 LED ones in and see tonight.

[Ryan_Pestell]

i like my 3 led ones, its just enough. still loads brighter than standard, but its more the type/colour light it gives off, much more modern.

still 50/50 on whether to do the interior ones.

need to see them in the flesh i think.

[Mr Footlong]

I can honestly say that the interior ones are a massive improvement but that is my opinion of course.

I have decided that I am going to hack out the passenger footwell panel to accept the bigger driver's side light. The are the same lengh, just wider on the driver's side one and the recess on the passenger one actually looks like it was made in a way to accept the bigger one, just needs cutting to widen. I will have to make 2 wires up to adapt to the different plug but easy enough. I considered cutting out the connectors in the smaller light and soldering a LED in to there but I am out seeing a client this afternoon who 5 mins from Camberley Audi so....

Left one is the passenger one, right is the driver one.

[Shoppinit]

Left one is the passenger one, right is the driver one.

OMG, how am I going to be able to sleep at night knowing one is bigger than the other?

Freak.

[Mr Footlong]

Left one is the passenger one, right is the driver one.

OMG, how am I going to be able to sleep at night knowing one is bigger than the other?

Freak.

EXACTLY! Symmetry wherever possible. Unlike having 1 nut bigger than the other, this is something that can be easily corrected

[chunky79]

I will try and get a better pick tonight 12". I think the 3 led like Ryan said are bright enough, well they are bright enough for me anways