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MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGA - LED bulbs

Would be very appreciative to hear from anyone who might have knowledge/experience with led bulbs.
I dont do much night driving but was out last night and realised how poor my headlights are. Particularly noticeable along a country lane with no street lights.
A friend mentioned halogen bulbs, but if led lights are possible, that might be better as I suspect they would put less strain on my loom.
So would appreciate hearing if this is a feasible solution for headlights, side lights, etc.
Not sure if it's relevant but I am still running with positive earth and a dynamo, but could change across I guess.
Graham V

i don't know what's available on your side of the pond but headlights and replacement lamps for side and brakes are readily available here. Many are polarity neutral and some are available in either + or - earth.

I have polarity neutral in my -earth TD and my +earth MGA. All from LBC. They draw much less amperage than other lamps. So much less that you need a new electronic flasher (plug and play) to make the turn signals work.

Jud
J K Chapin

Jud,

Can you supply details on exactly what you installed?

- Ken
KR Doris

Graham
Halogen with a headlight relay every time buddy.
LED headlights look brighter looking at them (and to the oncoming traffic) but in the rain they show up every raindrop and make driving very hard in heavier rain---crap in fog.

willy
William Revit

Jud
Thanks. I didn’t realise you could get polarity neutral.
I did hear that leds take much less current , as you also say. But I’m confused as a site I looked at says their led headlights take 3.5 amps but I calculate the existing sealed units are about 50 watts, so that means just over 4 amps. Not a lot of difference - Have I missed something?

Willy
I am sure you are right. But tbh, as usual I'm trying to be lazy, and just use the existing loom. That’s why led’s seem attractive.
I assume you drive the relay with the existing loom and run new wires to the headlights themselves?
Graham V

I agree with William. I switched to LED headlights on my TD rather than go to halogen. They are very bright and do help if you have charging issues, but they just don't seem to look appropriate on a vintage vehicle - too white and the beam seems more unfocused.
W Worden

KR, this is what I got:
https://www.lbcarco.com/cgi-bin/or17?runprog=lbcnews&page=/sft.html&o=

LBC had a sale a couple of years ago and the pair (I got a pair for my TD and a pair for my MGA) were about half price. Except for the sorry condition of my bulb holders, the installation was plug and play. In the same order I got small "bulbs" for all the other lights. The only issue I had was the tail lights/brake lights on the TD. Mine is a '53 with flat round lenses. The dual filament LED "bulbs" are lunger than the old bulb so it prevented the reinstallation of the lens. Not being a stickler for originality and because one of the original lenses fell in half on removal, I ordered a pair of frog-eye Sprite conic shaped lenses (the same diameter) and the fit right on. The first image is with the flat lenses and the second image is with the Sprite conical lenses.

Jud





J K Chapin

I’m all in favour of LED’s for sidelights and indicators, but not headlights.

LED suppliers may disagree, but headlamp reflector bowls were designed to focus light from a bulb, not an LED.

LED’s emit a totally different light pattern and thus your headlight will not be focussed correctly and likely dazzle oncoming cars. I think fitting LED’s into ‘bulb’ reflectors is illegal in the UK for those reasons:

I use ‘Powerbreaker’ headlight bulbs (Osram, I think) and they give a better, brighter light than the old halogen bulb.

Regards
Colin
Colin Manley

I had a very positive interaction with Classic Car LED's LTD in Tenbury Wells, UK. While I ultimately chose not to go with LED's at present, its still on my radar for a future project. Duncan Rickards was of tremendous help and was very patient with my questions and concerns. Classic Car LED's offers full car kits or individual component recommendations, both in bright white as well as warm white or color bulbs as appropriate. It never hurts to reach out and have an in-depth conversation; here's Duncan's e-mail:

sales@classiccarleds.co.uk

and here's the link to the Company site:

https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/

Nick Kopernik

Colin, I know you are right about the LED bulb in an incandescent reflector. The kits I got from LBC came with both the LED bulb and a new reflector. Presumably, but by no means certainly, the new reflector was properly designed for the LED bulb.

I drive at night only if something has gone wrong but I do use the headlights as DRLs. I think the glare is minimized in the daytime.

Jud
J K Chapin

Interesting... plenty to think about. Thanks

Colin: I assume you are referring to Osram NightBreaker lamps. Just googled them. They seem to have a range of 10 different halogen lamps- is this what you have? Did you use relays?
I have sealed units so need to change the whole assembley
Graham V

Graham, Yes, Nightbreaker is correct. I don’t recall the model other than they were a direct replacement.

I didn’t fit relays.

p.s. I have just read that, in the UK, it is illegal to fit LED’s in place of H4 or H7 headlamp bulbs.

Regards
Colin
Colin Manley

Colin
Thanks
You may not have it, but if you do, can you send me the link about it being illegal in the UK?
It is just that the website I was looking at (which also sells a complete MGA set) says
"The MOT rules have been clarified from 06.02.23 to allow the use of LED conversions that pass the beam pattern tests for headlights for Class 3, 4, 5 and 7 vehicles (car, private bus and light commercial vehicle) first used before 1 April 1986 and all class 1 and 2 motorcycles of any age"
https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/products/sb7002-sealed-beam-to-lucas-p45t-led-upgrade-kit-410-llb410-glb410-bulb-globe?srsltid=AfmBOoqy1H2LiHLMWSjRpmTggBEfEuVSH54qzW59HspSOxeEk5KVc6XT
Graham V

Graham,
Here’s one link that has useful info (make a coffee before reading it).
https://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/blog/are-led-headlights-legal-in-the-uk/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CExisting%20halogen%20headlamp%20units%20should,you%20must%20fail%20the%20headlamp.%E2%80%9D

Attached is a screenshot of my google search.

Regards
Colin


Colin Manley

Colin
Thanks for posting that. Being the annoying nerd I am, having read the article I started digging. It appears there is an exemption for all cars registered prior to 1986. I have pasted below a quote from https://www.classicandsportscar.com/news/led-headlight-upgrades-classic-cars-legal-or-not

“ The DVSA says: ‘Vehicles first used before 1 April 1986 are not required to use type approved ‘e’ marked headlamps. Therefore, converting a halogen, or other headlamp on such a vehicle to use LED bulbs would not be in contravention of the regulations.’”
Graham V

We're a little late to the table, but I suggest everyone have a look at the web site at www.brittrix.com. No headlight LEDs, but over 350 different classic British vehicle tail, brake, and turn signal lights are available. Also, the ONLY manufacturer of the MGA 1600 MK II tail lights in LED.
Boards, not bulbs!
Lew Palmer

Over three years ago I fitted LED bulbs to my positive earth TD in the headlamp shown, and they seem to work fine and produce better light with less electrical draw. One strange quirk came up however, the small main beam warning lamps is on all the time the headlamps are on either dipped or main beam. The supplier gave me some overly complex explanation and solution blaming it on some sort of "electrical leak". Not wanting to mess with my ancient wiring harness i simply live with it.



John Quilter (TD8986)

I decided it was LED Side and Stop/Tail Light Bulbs for me.
Appreciating the standard tungsten bulbs are seemingly rather dim now-a-days, I recently looked into these potentially brighter LED bulbs. The brake lights on our old cars can certainly be a bit of a worry in today’s traffic in the daylight. These bulbs will also use less power which must reduce the load on our old switches too. Being my first foray into these things I decided to keep it simple and just look into front side and the stop/tail light bulbs for my positive earth A”.
I had seen that 'Classic Car LEDs Ltd' were receiving good reports so looked them up and found you can get very reasonably priced, both positive and negative earth, bulbs that drop straight in.
I ordered the following ex-stock stop/tail and side light bulbs which arrived very promptly and whipped them straight in.
Amongst the very many options available I needed to choose the following for my MGA1600:-
Front Side Light Bulbs: Warm White LED Sidelight Gauge Bulbs GLB233 989 (5W equiv.)+ve earth.
Rear Stop/Tail Bulb: Red Stop/Tail Led 4014 30 Smd Brake Rear Light GLB380 (21/5W equiv)+ve earth. At the time they totalled about £21.
The lights are really a lot brighter. Warm white ordered as maybe more authentic?)
The real benefit to me is the brighter brake lights (you have to order RED bulbs even with red lenses) - a small price to pay for a bit more safety out there.
PeteT

That’s almost exactly what I did a couple of years ago and also pleased with the results. What I did differently was buy the full set which was probably a bit of a waste. Dash ones were fiddly to fit and I didn’t really need to do heads as I almost never drive in dark, but if I did it would drop load on very old switch.

Paul
Paul Dean

Paul, although I rarely, and never on purpose, drive in the dark, I put in LED headlights because I use them as daylight driving lights. It seems that our cars are sometimes invisible to other drivers around here so I think the extra bright DLDLs are helpful.

Jud
SC, USA

J K Chapin

Greetings from Thailand. I don't check here very often any more, but things seem to be unchanged !

One bulb that benefits from a special LED bulb on a 1500 MGA is the front indicators. I used what is termed a "Switchback" bulb, which illuminated white but flashed orange. I believe that made it considerably clearer for oncoming traffic than the (for today) unusual white flashing. I bought them on flabby for less than5 USD each, but prices have probably increased......

Dominic
Dominic Clancy

Dominic, nice to hear from you again.

Wow, I'd never heard of such lamps but they sound like the way to go. Here's the Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/LIGHSTA-Switchback-Daytime-Running-Resistor/dp/B08XBKS6KH/ref=asc_df_B08XBKS6KH?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80608060968611&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584207589062749&th=1

Jud
J K Chapin

I see them for about 10 USD each on eBay. Canbus is not required!
Dominic Clancy

Graham, Yes, Nightbreaker is correct. I don’t recall the model other than they were a direct replacement.

I didn’t fit relays.

Regards
Colin
Colin Manley

In looking at the info on the "bulb," it appears to have a single contact base. How does it know whether to be steady white or flashing amber? Inquiring minds ...

Jud
J K Chapin

Hi all,
I have no idea why my post from 2024 has been ‘reposted’ on 5th Jan 25.

Regards
Colin
Colin Manley

This thread was discussed between 14/08/2024 and 06/01/2025

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