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Is there any special fuses, wiring, etc to install LED bulbs, or are they plug and play?

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The hardest part (for me) was to find which particular LED bulb to buy. For each type of bulb there are many options - some of which will physically fit and some that might not.

As far as plug and play....the only thing you will probably have to change is the flashers on the harness. The OEM flashers for our cars are the thermal type which rely on a specific load (current draw) to operate. The LED bulbs will drop this load by 90% or more so these units will not work if you go to all LEDs. You may be able to get away with swapping one set of bulbs out but that is guesswork if that will still work with the OEM flasher.

I have the "heavy duty" flashers on my Charger now that I got from RockAuto for maybe $7 a piece or so? They work normally with the hazard and are a little slower now since I have gone almost all LED. I am guessing now with only a 1 amp or so draw for a single turn signal, I am at the bottom of this flasher's operating range now.

I am in the process of trying to research a flasher that will work with all LED (called no-load) and still make the "click" sound. Superbrightleds has electronic flashers ($12.95 here ) that WILL work with all LED lights but they are silent.

So almost plug and play (provided you find the right bulb) but have to change the flashers out.

I would highly recommend Superbrightleds.com as they have been a pleasure to work with. I have had to send some bulbs back and ask tech questions to find the right bulb and the rep I dealt with there (Ryan) was really good and they took returns very easily.

Their website also has very good CAD drawings of most their bulbs with dimensions so you can verify whether they will likely fit (very usefull for the interior lights).

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Seem to illuminate the whole lens like the incandescent's do. Kinda hard to tell though.

Which bulbs did you go with?

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I went with four of these in RED color.

1157 LED Bulb

Now with the hazards on, I cannot even see the ammeter move where as before it would swing wildly into discharge city if the car off/idling.

They fill the housing about like the incandescents do and take so much of a load of the charging system. Those bulbs alone save about 6-7 amps for a turn signal and ~13 amps for hazard lights.

I would guess they are maybe 150-200% as bright as standard 1157's but not too bright where it's annoying. It really just brings it up to about the brightness of a modern car.

Now all the incandescents I have left in the car are 4 bulbs total -- two fender turn signals, dome light, and license plate light which I am going to leave as standard bulbs.

It is real nice to be able to hit the parking lights and not even see the ammeter budge when the car is off! This is night and day (no pun intended) to the wild swing you get when you hit the lights before and get that 15-20 amp draw. Now the parking lights might pull 2 amps and half of that is the license plate bulb.

Again, not for everyone and many don't care but anything to unload the notorius Mopar charging circuit is not a bad idea. Just another avenue of attack....

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I am in the midst of trying to figure out which bulbs to order for my 73 Charger Rallye dash and car from Superbrightleds.com. They have suggested bulbs but many options. Do you happen to have your "shopping list" for this car?

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Thanks, that was what I was wondering. I will choose the cheaper bulbs for those.

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Wow I missed this thread...disappeared so long ago. When I got my LED's, all the colored bulbs for the dash, I got the dimmest ones. If you look at the superbrightleds website, they have a brightness rating that looks like light bulbs. Every light bulb is 1X the brightness of an incandescent...so if you bought a bulb with a '2 bulbs' brightness, this would be roughly 2X brighter than the original type. Some of those brighter bulbs are '5 bulbs' rated bright so 5X+ as bright! As the poster above indicated, this is annoying at night. The brighter (and larger) bulbs also will not physically fit in some of the smaller sockets.

For the white bulbs (regular illumination), I think i got the second from dimmest and they work very well and are dimm-able.

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I am in the process of trying to research a flasher that will work with all LED (called no-load) and still make the "click" sound. Superbrightleds has electronic flashers ($12.95 here ) that WILL work with all LED lights but they are silent.

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if you are not going to do the LED lighting the proper way {full boards) i would go with this method to get brighter,safer lights.

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Bulbs
Original equipment bulbs on most pre-'72 cars was as follows:

1034: dual-filament park/turn and brake tail. Clear bulb for use with red rear or amber front lens.

1034A or 1034NA: dual-filament park/turn. Amber bulb for use with clear front lens.

1141 or 1073: single-filament bulb. Reversing/backup lights (and single-function—brake-only, turn-only—lights not frequently found on old Mopars).

In the early '70s, the 1034 was replaced by the 1157, the 1073/1141 by the 1156. These 1150-series bulbs put out the same amount of light, but draw slightly more current and last quite a bit longer. When changing from 1034s to 1157s, often it was (and is) necessary to replace the turn signal flasher, because the original would flash too fast if used with 1157s. Nowtimes, it's difficult to find a flasher calibrated for 1034s.

So, what to use for upgrade bulbs? Well first, here's what NOT to use: 2057s! People sometimes assume that because it's a higher number, it's a brighter bulb. No. The difference between 1157 and 2057 is in the "minor" (dim parking or tail) filament. On the 2057, the dim filament produces 2 candlepower. On the 1157, the dim filament produces 3 candlepower. The difference doesn't sound like much, but it's very large as a percentage. Both 1157 and 2057 produce 32 candlepower from the bright (brake or turn) filament.

Though they are spendy, the best bulb you can use in place of 1157 is a 3496. You can get them from your local Honda dealer. Part number is 34906-SL0-A01. It draws the same amount of current as 1157, but is much more efficient. It produces 43 candlepower on the bright (brake or turn) filament, and 3.5 candlepower on the dim (tail or parking) filament. It also has a nickel-plated base that is much more corrosion resistant than the plain brass base of an 1157, so it's less likely to stick in the socket.

The best replacement for 1156, 1141 and 1073 in all applications *except* reversing/backup lights is a 3497. You can get P3497 bulbs from your local Honda dealer, too. Part number is 34903-SF1-A01.

3497 produces 45 candlepower. (Yes, the 6 and the 7 in P3496 and P3497 are reversed from the 6 and the 7 in 1156 and 1157 relative to how many filaments the bulb has. This is not a typo.) The 3496 and 3497 bulbs have a life span about double that of an 1157. It is worth your time, money, and trouble to get the 3496 and 3497 from a Honda dealer rather than a parts store...the parts store items are of much poorer quality and don't last as long.

The best bulb for use in backup/reverse lights is a 796. It is a 35W halogen bulb that produces 62 candlepower, or about double the light of an 1156 and about triple the light of an 1141. The extra wattage is minor (35W vs. 28W, the wires and lenses will not notice or care) and the filament is in the right place. Neither of these compliments can be said of those 50W halogen backup bulbs you see in the parts stores! 50W is wayy too much current draw (100% overload!) for the stock wiring and switch, they produce way too much heat for safety near plastic lenses, and the filament's in the wrong place so the reflector doesn't work correctly with them. The P796s work great, and you finally get to see where you're going when backing at night.

Amber bulbs are a special case. The amber coating "steals" some of the light, so the output is lower. The bright filament inside an 1157A or 1157NA produces 32 candlepower, but what comes through the amber coating is 24 candlepower. Unfortunately, there's no amber equivalent of 3496 for use in park/turn lights that have clear lenses. The next best thing is 2357A or 2357NA, which draws the same current as an 1157 and produces 30 candlepower despite the amber coating. 2357NA (or 2357A), as well as their non-amber 2357 counterparts, are considerably less expensive than P3496, but they lack P3496's anti-corrosion nickel-plated base, and they also lack P3496's Krypton gas fill, so they tend to blacken sooner than other bulbs if used in "bright" mode for prolonged periods (e.g. using a 2357 in brake lamp service). The 2357NA or 2357A works fine in front park/turn service because turn signal service is short and intermittent, which limits bulb blackening and makes overall bulb life acceptable.

Be careful when buying any of these bulbs. A lot of the major parts outlets are switching from name-brand bulbs worth buying to 3rd-world crapola not worth its blister pack. Only one company makes quality 3496s and 3497s, for example, that is Stanley. GE and Sylvania used to supply Stanley-made 3400-series bulbs, but both marketers went to Chinese lookalikes, and then to even cruddier Chinese ones that don't even look right. That's why to buy those particular ones at the Honda store.

The '68-'71 sidemarker lamps can be made about 60% brighter with 3886x bulbs, which also fit directly in place of the 1895s and 57s used in instrument cluster lights that take the metal bayonet-base bulbs.

1972-up sidemarker lights (and a lot of the '66-up instrument cluster lights) take an all-glass wedge-base bulb, which can be upgraded with 2886x bulbs - about 75% brighter than a 194, 60% brighter than a 168.

If your car has the little turn signal indicators mounted on top of the fenders, and one or both of them no longer flash, you can either spend $3.40 apiece at Year One for a replacement bulb with a plain brass base, or you can spend $10.60 and get a 10-pack of 'em with corrosionproof nickel-plated bases.

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The 3496 is available from AutoZone...
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/parts/S...dentifier=16862

Just my $0.02...