LED Indicators, Reverse Lights & Tail Lights & How To Fit Load Resistors
Contents
Celica Gen 7 LED Bulbs
This is a gude for converting the indicators (and othe bulbs)on the gen 7 Celica to an LED varient.
Why Would I Want To Do This
LED bulbs last longer than ther usual element versions, they can (if you purchase good ones) last the lenth of the cars life. They also turn on and off immediatly with no fading as normal bulbs do.
What You Need
You need the following items
2x LED Sidelights (At the time of writing these are available HERE
2x LED Rear Indicators (At the time of writing these are available HERE
2x LED Front Indicators (At the time of writing these are available HERE
4x Load Resistors (At the time of writing these are available HERE
A Few Notes
The sidelights are just 501 wedge bulbs but you are looking for something with 5 surface mounted (SMT) LED's, dont buy a bulb with more as they wont fit in the casing, and dont buy less as they wont be bright enough.
The rear indicators need to be 30 LED's or more, there are some sellers offering bulbs with 9 diodes, this isnt bright enough, beleive me, i have tried them.
The front indicators are a VERY tight fit, dont buy bulbs like the ones in this link CLICK ME, they just simply will not fit through the hole in your headlight casing, you need slim bulbs like the ones i have linked too above.
The load resistors ARE necessary and need to be 50W rated. There are some sellers offering 25W versions, these are intended for sidelights (which even though we are changing them the celica does NOT require) and simply arent upto the job in hand.
Lets Get Started
The bulbs are all fairly simply plug and play, so im assuming you know how to change them, il concentrate on fitting and mounting the load resitors. What these do is stop the rapid clicking you experience when you have a blown bulb. LED's trigger this as they dont draw as much power or create as much resistance as a normal filliment bulb. The load resistor somehow stops this (as far as i can see these things shouldnt work, from my limited electronics experience these simply create a short circuit, but non the less they work perfectly fine!.
That is a load resistor. For future knowledge the Green or Yellow wire must be connected to the Positive (+ve) side of things and the White wire needs to be connected to the earth (-ve) side of things.
I'l show you photos from the passengers side.
Rear Indicators
Remove the bulb and you should see exactly the coloured wires in this photo.
White + Black Stripe = Positive
Green + Yellow Stripe = Negetive
This colour combination is the same for both driver and passenger sides of the car!
You need to repeat the same for the drivers side, then test the bulbs out. When testing dont just put the hazards on. The first time i did this i put them on and the bulbs didnt flash rapidly, it was only when a single side was turned on that they did it. Start up the car and test properly, left then right. The turn off and proceed to the front.
Remember to mount your Load Resistors. They are made of metal and will rattle if left dangling, they can sometimes get a little warm (hence the large heatsink) I suggest mounting them in a semi permenant way. I am using adhesive gel pads, they are very very strong but if i ever need to remove it, its easilly done by stretching it. Another good way would be Velcro.
Front Indicators
The fronts are slightly harder due to the tight constraints on space. The front indicators are as follows.
Remove the bulb and you should see some black rubbery tubing covering most of the wiring, you need to strip about 1 inch max of this away to give you some room to work, once done you should see exactly the coloured wires in this photo.
White + Black Stripe = Positive
Green + (sometimes)Silver Bands = Negetive
This colour combination is the same for both driver and passenger sides of the car!
Just as with the rears clamp onto the wires with the included scothc locks, green/yellow from the resistor onto white on the car wiring loom and White from the resistor onto green on the cars loom.
Again repeat with the drivers side (which is much easier as you have more space) and test correctly.
Mounting the resistors in the front is a little harder than the rears. The drivers side is mounted onto the metal (very easy) just below the headlights, give it a good clean first so you get a solid adhesion with whatever you choose to use here.
Side Indicators
The sides are an easy 2 second job and dont require load resistors to be fitted.
Simply slide a blunt plastic instrument behing the side repeater and twist to pop it from the cars body, pull out the old bulb and put your new LED one in. Repeat for the other side and its job done.
What About Other Bulbs
I have changed my reverse lights to bright white LED ones aswell as my stop/tail lights. These also do not require load resistors and enahnce the look hugely, especially the crisp white of the reverse bulbs. You need the bulbs below for this.
2x White LED Reverse LED's (At the time of writing these are available HERE
2x Red Stop/Tail LED's (At the time of writing these are available HERE
Again make sure these are at least 25 LED's for the reverse and 24 for the stop/tail bulbs, i would not personally recomend getting anything less than this.
The End
Anyways hope some people find this usefull, its my first wiki page so sorry for any errors. If you have any questions feel free to PM me on the forums (cs2000) and il answer them for you.
Just wanted to post this as ive wasted ~£100 with bulbs that arent good enough quality, dont fit or the seller sends the wrong item. The auctions above are all sellers i have bought from so can vouch for their quality.
Enjoy!!!
