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Regular
Location: Santa Cruz, Calif. | I saw a post or inquery earier about LED marker lights in teardrop form. I went on a long search for these about a year ago. Both Grote and Trucklite make a triangular lamp that could pass but certainly is not the teardrop shape. Newer Ford trucks have cab markers that are LED teardrop but only in amber.
I finally came upon a fixture made by K&S up in Washington. Pics are in my album. K&S generally makes LED fixtures for motorcycles, but I guess thay take on OEM projects too. You won't find these lights at a K&S dealer or on their website. They are OEM strictly to Airstream. But you can get them from an Airstream dealer. Airstream's part number for the red is L04-0012. Don't know the Amber #, but it should be close.
Also note that these fixtures are flat bottomed so you may have to move them back from the edge or use RTV to fill.
Toscano's in Los Banos wants $35 apiece. Sky River in Paso Robles wants $28. Considering that there are 10 fixtures, it won't be a cheap conversion. But, hey, any antique automobile is a bottomless pit, right? |
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Expert
 
Location: Cottage Grove, OR | I will try to remember to bring along to Felton one of the marker lights I have gotten. They are not LED, but i like the looks of them. They are the same as Kjetil has on #477 as part of his restoration. They are the same size as the originals and have curvature that is close the curve of the FMC. I got the ambers off ebay for about $15 each and the reds from a light supplier in Texas for $25 each. |
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Veteran
Location: Oslo Norway | You could just install leds in those lights Stephen is talking about. Just have to make shure you get leds with that throws light in the correct direction for the application otherwise you marker/identification light on the roof will be thhowing most light straight up.
I am going with leds everywhere on #477 incl. dash and interior. This will give some extra amps to charge my domestic batteries, less heat, less voltage drop and less drainage on domestic batteries from using the interior lights.
Stay cool
Kjetil |
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Veteran
Location: Oslo Norway | 
This is the one. Easy to find in amber and www.taillightking.com might have the red ones. He also had original side marker lights in both amber and red. In this photo one can se some og the black butyl I used on as additional sealing on glass, and I also used some between the light and the roof. I do not trust the foam gaskets alone. Stay dry Kjetil |
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Regular
Location: Santa Cruz, Calif. | Before I make the following statements, let me just qualify myself. I have been doing electricity and lighting since I was a kid.
In the past 10 years of restoring vehicles and upgrading their lighting to LEDs and other, I have done 4 motorhomes, 4 travel
trailers, 6 trucks, and many cars. I know who the top suppliers are (Grote, Trucklite, Weldon, etc) and who makes the cheap
stuff.
Alright, here's the final on the K&S LED teardrop marker lights. Of the 10 (5amber, 5red) only one was defective. Each fixture
has 4 groups of LEDS: A single led in the rear, a cluster of 3 down each side, and a cluster of 4 in the front. On the defective
one, the cluster in the front would flicker, while the rest were solid. That indicatess an internal problem. I called Airstream
800# and tech support Fed-X'd a replacement out that same day. I went to replace it yesterday and discovered I had another
defective red one: there was condensate inside the LED housing, which is supposed to be sealed. That's 2 out of 10 bad,
not a good ratio.
At this point I am not recommending that anyone else go this route. Although Airstream has an outstanding quality reputation,
these fixtures by K&S are lacking. I'm suprised that a company like Airstream didn't go with a known quality provider like
Grote or Trucklite.
The entire mounting system leaves a lot to be desired. A seperate base plate is provided with a sponge rubber foot. Where the
2 mounting screws and wires penetrate the baseplate, K&S uses peel-n-stick gaskets (p-n-s). I don't have much faith with
peel-n-stick at highway speeds in driving rain. However there was total neglect at sealing the hole where the wires will have to
penetrate the vehicle roof. This I did with RTV. Then you have to pull the coach wires up through the roof & p-n-s seal, crimp the fixture wires to the coach wires and then stuff it all back down through the p-n-s seal and into the roof of the coach. You HAVE to do this because once the fixture snaps into the base, there is NO space for wires or crimps. By this time the p-n-s seal is elongated and sealing poorly. More RTV. I now have a fixture that can't be removed without a lot of prying or breaking. To compound the bad mounting even further, the screw mounting holes are in a recession (to accomodate the screw heads) but they are not part of the seal, so they collect
a rain water pool right at a potential leak location. This requires more RTV and now the fixture is glued AND snapped into place.
Although the fixtures LOOK good, I don't think K&S has a lot of experience at building over-the-road fixtures for long term use.
There are a lot of design flaws. I will recommend against converting your lights to them. |
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Veteran
Location: Kingsley Michigan | We replaced the bulbs in all of our running lights with LED lights as you can buy them to fit the old style peanut, 1034 and 1157 bayonet bases. A word of caution here though---if it is a red light---use a red LED, Amber--a amber LED. Otherwise your top clearance lights will appear somewhat green if you use the supposed white LEDs which have a very distinct blue color to them---Yellow and blue make green.
As for the stop lamps, we mounted new base sockets from the back of the housing so as not to have to deal with a directional billboard type massive 36 led 1157 type light. You can put someones eyes out with 4 of these in the rear when you step on the brake pedal-----a lacking feature of the original FMC design in poor rear illumination for both running and the turn indicators/stop lamps.
As for the interior lights---those LEDs on a hot summer day make a huge difference---both in battery life and most noticable---the heat they do not give off compared to conventional bulbs!
As always though---everyone elses trials and tribulations are great as it takes a lot of the pain out of the rediscovery of the rough road many of us have already traveled----
Stay safe; Barn |
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Expert
Location: Cottage Grove, OR | Lights! Always a good discussion. As noted above I have elected to stay with the original type for the clearance lights. I like the looks and I don't feel the power consuption is an issue as they are only used when the engine is running and lots of power is available at that point. For the rear tail/stop lights a number years ago before LEDs were available to the extent that they are now, I replaced my old light units with new ones of the same type, but I retained the two red light lens (no amber) and then made both of them dual filament units so that i have four turn/stop lights - two each side. This is legal due to age of the coaches.
For the interior, my coach was converted to the 12v flouresent up front before I got it and I like the broad lighting they give and don't plane on changing them. In the bedroom they are still the originals. On those I look at them once in awhile and wonder what, if anything I should do. I kind of like the subdued, dim light back there! On the spots, now that is another story. I don't like the heat and power consuption for those four lights (two bedroom and two up front).
I guess lights are a good reason to go to the Mega rally in Nebraska - we can all try out the others lighting schemes and then figure out what we like and configure our coach based on someone else's experiment/experience. |
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Extreme Veteran
Location: Ignacio Colorado | I just saw LED bulbs that may work in the original fixtures. I was at a truck stop out in Kansas. They are pricey. If they will fit I may use them in the interior lighting for #902. The interior lights in #100 have all been changed to the flouresent fixtures Bill |
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Regular
Location: Santa Cruz, Calif. | For those of you that really want Hawk's Head marker lamps, Grand General makes them at about $7 ea. Check out pic in album 509 restoration. |
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LED Teardrop Marker Lights
