Let there be LIGHT!

[Gary - K7GLD]

Having recently purchased an "Oldie-but-goodie" '88 27 foot Winnebago MH on a GM chassis, I been sorta busy restoring various areas and items back at least somewhere near what they were originally. Most of the heavier duty stuff has been accomplished, so I decided to work on the illumination provided at the rear of the MH, by a good general cleaning, as well as improving the reflectivity in the inner structure of the individual light modules.



Most MH's seem to all use pretty much the same actual fixtures for their interior and exterior lights - these are much the same as the ones on our Kit 5th wheel, which I have also worked on in the past to improve light output.



Some might figure that they do little actual night-time driving, so the lights are sort of low priority - but remember, the brake lights and turn signals ARE used, even in daylight - and wouldn't you sorta like those to be easily seen, even in direct sunlight?



SO, here's the routine - first remove the light lens(es) for an inspection - mine look like this:



#ad




Not too bad overall, other than the relatively small and DULL reflector surface - the lenses themselves are in good shape, so a simple cleaning of the interior of the module and bulb is accomplished, then I cut a piece of aluminum foil a bit larger than the light module case, and wad it up a bit to provide irregular reflective surfaces for increased light reflectivity:



#ad




Once carefully opened up, and gently formed shiny side out, to the inner surfaces of the light module, it looks like this - be VERY careful to NOT allow the foil to contact or potentially short out any of the light bulb wiring - tape or various small dabs of glue/cement can be used to hold the foil in place if you feel it's needed:



#ad




OK, button it all up, and check out the results - the pic below was taken in broad daylight, the cluster on the LEFT has been worked on, the right side is still stock - the low res quality on Internet photos is deceiving, and while not greatly evident here, there IS about double the light output on the modded lights, and instead of a rather small central glow from the lights as seen on the right side, it can be seen that ALL the lens surface is lighted on the modded lights on the left (in this light switch position, only the upper and lower outer modules are lit:



#ad




SO - if you, like me, feel that BEING seen is as important as SEEING, you might want to consider "performance enhancing" yer RV lights as well as some of your other stuff...

 

[Jefff929]

Hummm...



good move Gary!!

 

[DonTX]

Good move Gary! I just enhanced my truck camper lighting, but took a different route. I KNOW it made a big difference, now when I signal or stop, people pay attention.

I went to a lighting place and looked for the brightest LED lights available. They turned out to be a rectangle shaped, maybe three by eight and FLUSH MOUNT! After buying and installing them, I find Harbor Freight has the same lights - for quite a bit less than I paid, $49. 99 as I recall. I mounted them about a foot ABOVE the original lights, which I think were far too low to be noticed easily.

I had the originals apart, and low and behold the "reflector" is nothing but flat black plastic! I am intending to do the same as you did with foil to make some sort of reflector for them as well.

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

YUP - pretty hard to beat the results of an hours work - and 5 cents worth of aluminum foil! :-laf

 

[HBarlow]

Your solution was a bit less expensive than mine.

I replaced the two OEM taillamps and two white (useless) backup lamps on my HitchHiker fiver with four new red LED tail lamps purchased from PPL Motorhomes Parts Department in Houston. The LEDs are actually so bright they hurt the eyes if you stand a few yards behind the trailer and look at the lamps in darkness with flasher activated. Sure enhances night visibility and safety.

 

[rknichols]

To DonTX



Interest comment on your LED's. I did the same on my Cameo. It has candles on the corners, don't know how they got approved so I added the LED's. Now you can read by them.



I got rear-ended in Mass last fall and I suspect they never saw the right signal.



Thanks for the pictures. Printed one for the record.

 

[EricBu12]

heres 2 of the 4 , 60 LED Lights on my toyhauler.

#ad


And the 14 LED Marker lights all around the trailer.

#ad


and the Mid-Trailer Turn Signal Light

#ad

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

YUP - no doubt about it, some of you guys go all out - great jobs displayed up there above! Oo.



ME, I sorta tend to do the simpler, easier and less expensive projects to display here, more easily and likely to be used by a wider span of readers - that's always been my major goal - SIMPLE but effective projects easily duplicated at low cost... .



Us Social Security retirees hafta watch our $$$ ya know! :-laf



Nice to see so many neat and effective alternatives are available - they look VERY effective, what is the average current draw on some of those as compared to the bulb types they replace?

 

[EricBu12]

LED Lights Generally draw 1/10th the power of and incandescent and last up to 100,000 hours

 

[Silver Ratler]

Mid Trailer Turn Indicator

Eric;



Where did you find your mid trailer indicators?? I need to install this or similar lights on my 34' Bic Country.



Thanks

 

[Jefff929]

Gary, did the foil thing this last week... you could have grown spuds in the bottom of my trailers lights. Cleaning them out added bunches of light, then the foil went in. I was pretty shocked at the difference. Looks great, took about 20 minutes, couple cents of foil and most of the time was finding the scissors. :-laf



Thanks again for the idea! Oo.

 

[MrLuckey]

and most of the time was finding the scissors. :-laf

You are using much too heavy duty aluminum foil if you need scissors j/k

 

[EricBu12]

Found the mid trailer Turn indicators at a truck stop. . Pilot I believe.