These are all great answers, thanks! Gary, I appreciate your thoroughness. It's sometimes frustrating when the response is "don't worry about it," without any explanation. The "why" is often more important than "what."
I agree that the incandescent bulbs have a different look, and I prefer the look, too. My priority, though, is making it a car that I don't have to work on quite as much. Ideally, there would be an electronic solution that could operate dimmable LEDs to get the same look with longer lasting units, but I haven't heard of such a thing, yet.
I'll definitely check out the Bird Nest, thanks again!
I've
updated the taillights on my 64, remembering that this car started as more-or-less a basket case that's needed everything. I replaced the lamp sockets with some
NAPA sockets that someone recommended, and I also painted the inside reflectors with chrome paint (the kind you get at any auto
parts store). Seems in the beginning I only painted one lamp, left the other one as is, and one day I went on a "tour" with an AACA group -- and the fellow following me yelled there's something wrong with my lights, as one lamp is dimmer than the other. I got home and checked -- the painted one was "slightly" dimmer, but the difference was so infinitesimal that you really had to look at both simultaneously to see the difference. So I painted the other. I added a
sequencer, electronic, that required two units, one for each lamp. It worked great for years, although one of them would act up from time to time. The problem was bad wiring connections. One day last year, a shop rewired the entire front-to-back wiring, and
installed a new sequencer (one unit handles both lamps). Aside from the big bill, it's all working with original-type lamps.
Indeed, LED's are better than incandescent lamps in that they use less energy and are more reliable, but the original style lamps will last quite awhile by themselves -- I've seen more bad wiring/bad grounds on cars than burned-out lamps. But again -- personal preference. One advantage of LED's on these cars is the fact that those huge lamps were such a strain on current that the brake light switches burned out -- and a mod was installed to add a relay. That was 1964 -- in 65-66 the switch was moved from the
master cylinder to the pedal itself, and I'm sure it was a bigger switch. Also, the original headlight switches were known to have problems, and in addition to a new switch, I replaced the original headlights with halogens. In low-beam mode, current draw is cut almost in half.
Working on radios, every set gets a new dial amp, whether it needs it or not. I typically replace the lamp with the same type, with a few exceptions. A #57 gets replaced with a #1895; same brightness, draws something like one microamp more, and has ten times the expected life. Same with a #1891; I use an #1893. Some people ask about LED's; someday I might be forced to do this, but as long as I can get the originals, they simply look better in the dash.