LED Headlight, Brake, Reverse and Indicators Project for Late 280SL US

[Chris Long]

I've looked and seen a number of threads on the topic of LED conversions but I found that the data is a bit spread out.

This is intended to be a guide on what and where to buy and how easy to do the conversion... Thread will evolve over time - If I get to the interior lights at some point I will add those.

Overall I'm happy with the updates - The lights are much brighter, use less current, produce less heat and should last much longer - What's not to love? No permanent or even semi permanent mods are required.

Bulbs

Headlights
+ Hella H4 LED Conversion kit - you do need to cut off the extra metal tabs on the lenses to get them to mount - takes a couple of mins if careful with an angle grinder or dremel
+ H4 LED bulbs

Front Bulbs
+ Turn signal: BA15s 21W
+ Sidelight : BA9S 5W

Rear Bulbs
+ Brake light: BA15s 21W
+ Tail light: BA15s 5W
+ Back-up light: BA15s 15W
+ Turn signal: BA15s 21W

Side Bulbs
+ Front and Rear Lit Sidelights / Reflectors (Late model 280SL USA): BA9S 5W


LEDs from the UK from https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk -

Parts (Qty)
+ 1 x Headlights H4 Hi/Lo Beam Conversion  - https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/collections/headlight-led-bulbs/products/latest-led-headlights-h4-philips-z-es-hi-lo-beam-conversion-9-32v
+ 2 x HELLA 002395031 Vision Plus 178mm H4 High/Low Beam Conversion Headlamp - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001G76Q2W 
+ 2 x Stop Light GLB382 red - http://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/collections/12-volt-collection/products/2x-ba15s-red-stop-fog-led-4014-30-smd-brake-rear-light-glb382-p21w-classic
+ 2 x Tail Light GLB207 red - http://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/collections/12-volt-collection/products/2x-ba15s-bright-red-led-tail-rear-light
+ 2 x Reverse Light GLB382 white or warm white - http://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/collections/12-volt-collection/products/12v-ba15s-21w-led-4014-smd-bulb-classic-vehicle-p21w-glb382
+ 4 x Front and Rear Indicators GLB382 Amber - http://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/collections/12-volt-collection/products/bright-amber-smd-led-indicator-bulbs-ba15s-glb382
+ 2 x Front Sidelights GLB989   Bright White or Warm white to match headlight choice - http://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/products/ba9s-233-989-gauge-dash-clock-interior-dome-light-led-upgrade-various-colours
+ 4 x Side Front and Rear Reflectors (Late Model 280SL) GLB989  Warm white  - http://www.classiccarleds.co.uk/products/ba9s-233-989-gauge-dash-clock-interior-dome-light-led-upgrade-various-colours

Flasher

Using an LED flasher and 4mm bullets from Castle Creations I created a flasher which plugs directly into the Mercedes wiring block; 100% reversible in seconds. Simply replace the spade connectors with the Bullet Connectors and install; Tested and worked perfectly with existing bulbs. Tucks under dash alongside old mechanical flasher unit.

Parts

• Flasher - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GSK8WKY
• Castle Creations Bullets - https://www.amazon.com/Castle-Creations-CCBUL4X3-Bullet-Connector/dp/B001ASCHU2

Wiring

Block Number	Old Relay	Modern Relay	Desc	CF15 LED Flasher Wire
3	15	B(49)	Battery	Red
4	31	E(31)	Ground	Black
2	54	L(49a)	Switch	Blue

[Chris Long]

LEDs installed in about 20mins front and rear. Smooth as silk with LED flasher. 

[sandcrab59]

the castle creations on Amazon does not work.
Cannot get to it.
What could be wrong?
Tom

[Chris Long]

Updated with Headlight info

[Chris Long]

Updated with the side lights info... I missed the license plate bulb - doh

[doitwright]

What is your name or do you prefer to be referred to as Arct1k?

Does your car have the US or European headlights?

Is your satisfaction with the LED headlights compared to standard headlight bulbs or halogen bulbs.

Thank you for the detailed write up. Did you take photos of the LED installation in the headlamp?

[Chris Long]

I started with USA headlights but used the Hella kit to convert to H4 bulbs the same as the European bulbs.

I’ll post some pictures up of the end result over the weekend. The converted lenses are a bit flatter but much brighter so overall I’m happy. Chris

[Chris Long]

Pics of headlights / tail lights

[Garry]

Here is Euro headlights with  LED lights.


They are a but of a fiddle fitting but are 100% improvement on the original lights


Garry

[Paul & Dolly]

These are some pictures of the Classic Car LED headlight fitting,

I had to reduce the plastic ring height, and grind the lugs off the metal ring, in order to refit the Spring holder, Quite straightforward , when you have the parts on the bench.
The LED sidelight needed to be fitted from inside the reflector, as its head was too large to fit through the hole in the reflector.

Keep well

Paul

[66andBlue]

13 years ago we had an interesting comment by the Guru of automotive lighting, Daniel Stern, about upgrading the original incandescent bulbs with brighter ones that is still an interesting read: https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=2679
The debate whether the bulb shield (baffle) should be removed when installing a p45t halogen bulb with a silver tip is continuing. His answer then and now is to leave it in place. The link to his procedure to adjust the headlight beams without the aid of an optical beamsetter has been in our technical manual for years.

I contacted him a few days ago wanting to know his opinion about retrofitting the headlamps with LED bulbs, specifically whether they are an improvement. His answer, which I am copying here with his permission, was as usual unequivocal and stern (pun intended):

"Answer is a hard, flat *no, sir*. The "LED bulbs" now flooding the market, claiming to convert headlamps to LED,  are not a legitimate, safe, effective, or legal product. No matter whose name is on them or what the vendor claims, these are a fraudulent scam. They are not capable of producing the right amounts of light, nor producing it in the right pattern for the lamp's optics to work.
Headlamps aren't just flood or spot lights; they are precision optical instruments (yes, even a cheap and minimal headlamp counts as a precision optical instrument) that have a complex, difficult job to do in terms of simultaneously putting light where it's needed, keeping it away from where it's harmful, and controlling the amounts of light at numerous locations within the beam to appropriate levels (too much light in certain areas is just as dangerous as not enough). Headlamps cannot just spray out a random blob of light, and that's what they do with anything other than the correct kind of light source.
Also see https://jalopnik.com/why-most-led-headlight-upgrades-dont-really-work-an-ex-1843070472 (and my one and only comment amidst the noise in the comment section)"

This is a rather long blog and for those who don't want to spend the time reading it all here are his major reasons:

"As Stern explains: “Longitudinal position of the light source (where the light source starts and ends, as measured from the base plane of the bulb) is only one critical aspect.” But it’s not the only thing that matters. “Others include shape, size, orientation, and luminance distribution. Getting one out of five right is better than zero out of five, but it’s still 20 percent, a badly failing grade.”

“If we could wave a magic wand and come up with a cylindrical LED emitter of the same dimensions as a filament, with the necessary luminance and flux, then the incompatibility would vanish. That is not technically possible for the foreseeable future, so we have basically two-dimensional flat LEDs in place of a three-dimensional cylindrical filament.”

“There is significant space between the two back-to-back flat LEDs (there has to be, otherwise no material to carry away their heat), so now our light source is radically different from a filament in shape, size, position, and light distribution even if we’ve taken great care to put the emitters at exactly the same longitudinal position as the original filaments.”

And why does that matter again?

The problem is that light reflectors designed for halogen bulbs are inherently incompatible with the light output of LEDs.

Stern wrote: “...the near- and far-field light distribution is quite different to what the lamp’s optics were engineered for.” And as a result, the headlight’s beam pattern isn’t what it’s supposed to be, doesn’t line up with the way the vehicle’s engineered, and is all-around suboptimal.

Why do my lights have to keep the factory beam pattern?

Stern’s analogy: “I wear eyeglasses, and so does my next-door neighbor. It would be injurious and counterproductive for us to swap because even if they fit my face and look awesome, the optics don’t match my eyes (even if I think I can see OK with them).”

“And it’s not because I picked the neighbor to the left instead of the neighbor to the right. The same holds true for both neighbors’ glasses even though the one pair has glass lenses and the others are plastic, the one set has round lenses and the others are rectangular, the one set is photochromic and the other isn’t, the one neighbor is more farsighted than I am and the other is more nearsighted, etc.”
“The details are different, but the basic problem is still optical incompatibility, and the scale of the relevant differences is much smaller than ‘these lenses look the same to me!’”

To say it again, slightly more sciencey: LEDs in housings designed for halogen bulb replacements put the wrong amount of light in the wrong places."

I would still encourage everyone planning to convert to LED bulbs in headlamps to read the complete blog.

[Paul & Dolly]

An interesting read, Nethertheless quite a few have  fitted the  Classic Car Led ,Headlight LED units and are pleased with the result.
I am not an optics expert, but I think the lighting is improved and the beam pattern has remained fundamentally the same. Less amperage is also drawn .
My car and others, continue to pass an annual UK MOT test,which includes checking all the lighting on the car.
However it is obviously up to individuals to remain law abiding.
Keep well
Paul

[66andBlue]

Hi Paul,
I am glad you can pass your annual MOT tests despite your mods.   
Here is a good summary of the legal implications in the UK, but you probably know that already:
https://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/blog/are-led-headlights-legal-in-the-uk/

I did not include all the arguments that Stern provided especially about the beam pattern being the same because it really gets deep into optics and visual perception. Looking at the beam pattern on a wall and comparing it with the previous one stored in your brain's memory is a tricky one. During your annual MOT does the tech use a beamsetter, or is it all visual?
Even with a headlight adjustment device (beamsetter) the Mercedes instructions in the BBB (https://www.sl113.org/wiki/Electrical/EuropeanLamp) indicate that the light/dark break is not always clearly visible.

Stern points out that taking photographs of beam patterns and comparing them is also fraud with problems.
"Fact is, photographs of beam patterns are very misleading even if the photographer has the best of intent and purest of motives. That's because pixels and film work in a fundamentally different way than human eyes. Even a photographer who diligently tries very hard to keep all the camera settings identical when photographing different beams up against a wall cannot present more than rough general information about the beams, and then only by comparison (a sharper cutoff vs. a fuzzier one, for example, or a wider beam vs. a narrower one).
In short: a very good, very carefully made photo of a beam pattern can potentially tell a trained, knowledgeable individual how bad the beam is, but not how good it is, and even the best photo of a beam pattern can only mislead someone without the training and knowledge."

Of course, if you are pleased with the results then leave it that way .... and try to never drive in fog when the low beam pattern is especially important. 

However, if you want to dig deeper into this field then I recommend to look at the information that the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer provides: https://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/transportation/index.asp
Even more fun is to drive a car by night on a winding road that is equipped with "Adaptive Driving Beam" technology. On my last visit in Germany I drove an E-class equipped with this system and it was amazing. Unfortunately, here in the USA we are still in the dark ages and have to wait until the NHTSA gets its act together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYSix5r38qY

Drive safely and stay well.

[Paul & Dolly]

Hi Alfred,

Yes an interesting read, The UK MOT does check the beam pattern, on a testing machine for dip adjustment for no dazzle.
I think the basic legal problem with LEDs  is that the legislation was written before there were LEDs, so none can be E marked, hence they are not legal for road use.

On the subject of Dazzling oncoming traffic,
It always strikes me as crazy that when most UK cars travel in Europe mainland they adjust or blank off parts of the beam that would dazzle oncoming traffic where they drive on the Right,- But I have never seen a "European" car take similar precautions when travelling here in UK, and never heard of one being stopped by the traffic police for that reason.

Keep well Alfred,

Best wishes

Paul & Dolly

[Garry]

We are in the same boat with getting a roadworthy where the headlight beams are checked.  I have not had a problem with my LEDs and i think they are just great and so much better than what was originally there.


Garry

[Peter van Es]

If you drive classic car rallies, light upgrades are not allowed, according to the regulations. You have to have period correct lights.

My daily driver has adaptive led matrix lights. As Alfred says, they are wonderful at night -- especially at high speed, because you can drive with full beam on. They will "veer" the beam away from oncoming traffic, or dim it by itself depending on turns and traffic. And, if I were to drive in the UK I can tell the system I'm now driving on the left and it will handle it.

Peter

[neelyrc]

Thanks Alfred,  I knew I didn't want to switch to LEDs, I just didn't know why! 

Seriously. I drive my 113 very little after dark but when I do, I have absolutely no problem with the original lights. 

[Merc_Girl]

Apologies for being a bit late on this thread.

I’m a little confused as to why it is being suggested the LEDs for the rear lights should be coloured?

Given the rear lenses are coloured, would not ‘warm white’ LEDs not work?

Also confused, easily done, about the indicator bulbs? Does a flasher relay need be fitted? If so, does the existing relay need be over ridden?

Many thanks

[Chris Long]

The colored leds are recommended to augment the plastic lenses else white I believe can wash them out.

The flasher is replaced by the LED unit. The normal flasher is based on thermal switching. The leds don’t pull enough current to get the old flasher to work.

The LED flasher works on a digital timing circuit.

[Merc_Girl]

Thank you 😁

So if all my rear lenses are red, I’ve a 230sl, Then you advise i should use red LEDs?

[JamesL]

Yes
Red to show out the back requires a red bulb and lens

https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=22863.msg189376#msg189376