Thread: LED Defender - Rear Lights, indicators & flasher unit

Originally Posted by Dave_S

My indicators have been playing up and now the stop/tail lights have started causing trouble. Relatively new replacement units have started to fail already and I've had to bodge one up just to hold a bulb. So I've decided to bite the bullet and ordered a kit from Bolt On Bits last night. I got the "traditional look" kit with 4 amber indicators. The kit comes with a new flasher relay to suit.

From what I can tell the wiring should be set up to fit directly to the 110 County, but I'm happy to play with connectors if necessary. The bulb holders require new holes, as they ae held on with 2 screws instead of the original 3.

I will have to sort something out for the side repeaters - they are a different shape to the ones shown earlier in this thread. I'd also like to change the reverse light and number plate light.

I'll put a follow up post on how the kit goes, but don't hold your breath. I've had a bike frame in transit for over 6 weeks now and still no sign of it.

My kit arrived fairly quickly but it took me until last weekend to fit the new lights. With a County you have to cut off the fancy modern connectors and fit the crimp on male/female connectors supplied with the kit. I didn't solder mine, but will no doubt be punished for this later. I did cover them with heat shrink though.

I'm impressed with how bright the new lights are. The problem is they don't work. Either I have problems in the underlying wiring, or the car is possessed by the ghost of an evil clown. When first fitted the indicators and hazards worked fine. Now if you put the right indicator on all is good, but signalling left turns on the hazard lights. At first the tail lights worked fine, but the left hand brake light wouldn't work. Now when you turn the headlights on the left hand brake light stays on all the time. The right one still works fine.

On top of all this, last night the fuel shut off mechanism decided to go on strike, naturally in the off position. My very understanding partner was at the shops at the time. Guess who made dinner.

Looks like I'll be doing much head scratching over the weekend.

Pull out the bulb for the indicator light in the dash and report back. That problem occurs because the way the Landies have that particular bulb wired, hooked to both sides of the indicator circuit. With regular old bulbs, the other side's indicators don't light up as the current is too low. With LEDs, any tiny current lights them up.

If it all starts working again with the dash bulb out - which I suspect it will - I have a workaround for you. On mine, the right hand indicators run through the "indicator" dash light to ground, the left hand run through the now useless "trailer light" bulb to ground. This also allows you to use LEDs for the dash bulbs too.

With the tails it sounds like you've swapped the "tail" and "brake" wires from the light? Not sure, I'll put my thinking cap on.

Originally Posted by Dervish

Pull out the bulb for the indicator light in the dash and report back. That problem occurs because the way the Landies have that particular bulb wired, hooked to both sides of the indicator circuit. With regular old bulbs, the other side's indicators don't light up as the current is too low. With LEDs, any tiny current lights them up.

If it all starts working again with the dash bulb out - which I suspect it will - I have a workaround for you. On mine, the right hand indicators run through the "indicator" dash light to ground, the left hand run through the now useless "trailer light" bulb to ground. This also allows you to use LEDs for the dash bulbs too.

With the tails it sounds like you've swapped the "tail" and "brake" wires from the light? Not sure, I'll put my thinking cap on.

Thanks Dervish, you were right on the money. The dash bulb was causing the weird indicator issue. I did the same thing as you - swapped a few wires around and used the redundant "trailer" icon to tell me when the left hand indicator is on.

The brake light problems were being caused by the trailer wiring. Whoever put it in left a few bits of wire and crimp on terminal ends exposed. At some point enough current was jumping from the light circuit to light up the brake lights. I just tidied it all up for now and it works fine. The vehicle could use a complete rewire really - I guess I'll add that to the list.

The kit seems pretty impressive once fitted. I'll be interested to see how reliable it is in the long run.

I'd be interested in this work around as I'm looking at replacing the Hella perentie trailer style rectangular lights with LEDs, which have 25 LEDs for each light (brake/tail, indicator, reverse).

Originally Posted by Reads90

Try this company

They look like the same lights but cheaper


Defender Lighting & Light Bars

I bought my set from First Four. Yep, they're the Wipac products.

The flasher unit didn't work properly but FF replaced it with no hassle. Now fitted, everything works fine. Certainly they are a great deal brighter than the old incandescent lamps.

Originally Posted by rar110

I'd be interested in this work around as I'm looking at replacing the Hella perentie trailer style rectangular lights with LEDs, which have 25 LEDs for each light (brake/tail, indicator, reverse).

Let me know how you go, as that's something I'll be doing on my Perentie too. In fact, I might have a great deal of questions for you soon.