Replacing Stop/Turn/Tail Lights

[laverdur]

My Monty came with the standard round Stop/Turn/Tail (STT) lights which use an 1156 bulb. Over time, heat from the brake lights melted the center of the red lenses and burned the color out of them, resulting in a white spot in the middle of the lenses. Initially, I planned on just replacing the lenses but them found that the rubber gaskets that seal the lenses were also heat damaged. After I was unable to find replacement gaskets I was left with no option but to replace the fixtures. Trekwood has a direct replacement for $12.99 plus shipping. I knew if I used the same light I'd end up with the same problem in a few years so I decided to investigate LED replacements. I first tried an 15-LED replacement for the 1156 bulb. The stop/turn part of this LED worked well because the 10 LEDs that served that purpose were well centered behind the lens. The tail light part used the lower 5 LEDs and they were at the edge of the lens so they did not provide much light. Next, I looked at etrailer.com and found Optronics 10-LED sealed replacements for the original lights. At $17.58 each, the cost to upgrade was minimal. I did have to purchase two 3-wire pigtails ($1.35 each) so that I had the 3-pin connector that fits the back of the new light. The new lights are installed and they provide excellent brightness for both tail lights and brake/turn lights. The shell for the new lights is slightly larger than the original lights so the screw holes did not line up well. A couple of minutes with a rasp and the opening in the fiberglass was now large enough for everything to line up. Very easy installation. To keep it simple, I just cut the wires going to the old lights and used inline crimp connectors to splice the new wires to the stubs of the old ones. Everything works perfectly. Turn signal hyperflash can be a problem when replacing bulbs with LEDs. I think this applies mostly to the TV and not to the towable. I suspect that a proper factory towing package with a proper towing electrical interface helps in this regard. I'm pretty sure that home-brew trailer wiring that is only spliced onto the wires for the TV lights vs. a proper towing electrical interface would be a problem.