(VERY) Simple mod for blinking side markers (2 Viewers)

[bmwjnky]

I'm going to give this a try tomorrow since I don't like that you can't see the front turn signals unless you are directly in front. I did a similar mod to one of my BMW's that only had front turn signals about 8 years ago and it was a similar process.

 

[80t0ylc]

Visibility isn't so much an issue for marker lights as it is for turn signals, at least in my experience. If I'm turning, I really want the person to the side of me to see that I'm turning. If I'm driving in a straight line, it's generally not so important that the person to the side see me.

Whether your turn signals or marker lights are in the lamps under the headlights, there's a blind zone from the side. There are marker lights on the rear, so that helps eliminate the blind zone. Not to mention head lights, etc.

OTOH, the turn signals don't have a side light. So if you're directly to the side, it's darn near invisible.

I totally agree that this mod of Slee's is superior to just swapping the wiring. But I still think that swapping the wiring is superior to the OEM (80) setup. And I've noticed that there are actually quite a few vehicles setup that way from the factory (marker under the headlight, turn in the corner). So if you don't want to rewire anything, swapping the lights is a super cheap and easy way to improve visibility.

Ya know Gabe, I don't know if you're old enough to remember how passenger cars and pickups used to be before they had clearance lights. They had what was called parking lights - which doubled as front turn signals, in addition to the headlights on the front. The rear was tail lights, brake lights - which doubled as rear turn signals and backup lights. The light switch had 3 positions, 1. off, 2. parking and 3. headlights. When the parking lights were on, the headlights were off and when the headlights were on, the parking lights were off. Tail lights were on with either parking or headlights. All this was only visible from the front or rear. Nothing was visible from the side.

Commercial size trucks & buses had clearance lights long before family vehicles. It was for safety that clearance lights were adopted on all size rigs. Also the ability for the parking lights to stay on while the headlights were on - same purpose - safety. It might seem redundant or unnecessary to some for all these lights to be on. But the intent was to cover all conceivably night time and weather conditions and scenarios, moving or parked by the side of the road, single vehicle or in a group, etc.... You just can't predict or imagine what would grab a drivers attention best because the variables are just too wide open. They could be drunk, distracted, sleepy, etc.....

So, I guess my point is that IMHO, from a safety - as well as common sense standpoint, clearance lights are as important as turn signals, despite the shortcomings in some designs and laws. The progression or evolution of vehicle lighting seems to favor being over-lit than under-lit. And it seems, they're at least trying to standardize, which has led to rear turn signals on domestic vehicles that are now amber, instead of red. For a few years now, well designed or more efficient placement positions the clearance and turn signals on the corners, so they can wrap around and one light can be visible from a considerably bigger area. They have even been adding indicators on the side rear view mirror housings. Anyway, it's a long way from what lights used to be, hopefully we're moving in the right direction.

 

[Ebag333]

Ya know Gabe, I don't know if you're old enough to remember how passenger cars and pickups used to be before they had clearance lights

I'm not that old (thanks for reminding me I just had a birthday! ), but I'll put it to you this way, my 1997 80 is the newest vehicle I've ever owned. Drove an '83 Tercel for years, and had an '88 MR2 for quite a while. Heck, except for a '94 Corolla I had for a few years, I've mostly owned 80's rigs (er...year, not model...). So I'm more than a bit familiar with the multi-function single lights.

In fact, swapping the marker and turn signal light reminds me very much of the old school trucks that had a very similar setup (in fact, IIRC some of the late 1980's Toyota trucks had this exact setup, I know a bunch of domestics had it).

I'm actually not a very big fan of doubling up the purpose on the lights, unless they have two separate bulbs or dual filament in there (which isn't really doubling up the lights, just the housing). I don't really like the function changing which could potentially be confusing to other drivers. Granted, not likely, but it does introduce a little room for confusion, especially in poor visibility conditions (I've driving a few times when pretty much the only thing you can see is lights).

IMHO, you're better off using a dual filament bulb that can act as both a true marker light (always stays on) and a turn signal. In fact, that's exactly how I'd like to wire mine up. Then the corner light doesn't shut off as a marker when you turn the turn signal on, which could cause another driver to misjudge what you're doing. Basically it would just be going from marker to flash and back to marker, as opposed to marker, dark, flash, dark, flash...etch etc.....dark marker.

It really wouldn't be hard to fab up a harness to do so, you don't even need relays or anything.


Anyway, long story short that's really the advantage that the old school all in one lights had, they didn't stop being markers once you turned on your turn signal (well, some did but a lot didn't, either had two bulbs or dual filament bulbs). And that's exactly what I don't like about this mod, and why I chose to just swap lights rather than do this mod.

Hmm, now you got me thinking. I'm going to have to see if I can find a harness or fab one up that would let me run a dual filament bulb in the corners.

 

[arthbkins]

I tried the simple approach from this thread and swapped in LEDs for the marker lights at the same time. The result is that it worked great with marker lights off (markers flashed at same time as turn indicators), but the markers stayed off all the time if the markers were turned on (meaning parking lights turned on or headlights turned on). I reverted to the stock incandescent bulbs in the markers, and everything worked as described in this thread. I assume this is because LEDs only work with current flowing one way whereas incandescents don't care about polarity.

Has anyone had similar experiences and/or found a workaround that let's you use LEDs for the markers?