LED dash lights Issue

[DougBoy66]

This may already be common knowledge but, I had the dash apart fixing a few things and since I was in there I put some new LED lights in the gauge cluster. I had read not to use an LED for the battery light so I used a stock incandescent bulb there. Well, If you use an LED buld for the ABS dash light it will cause the brake to not function correctly and that new super bright ABS bulb will stay on any time the key is on. I changed it back and ABS light works as normal and the brake RABS is back to normal as well. Weird. This was my experience any way. I would have never thought that changing a dash light type would have caused that issue.

 

[IDIBOBS]

Yup. The system uses the resistance in the regular bulb. LEDs have no resistance. Same with brake light bulbs. However you can wire in a resistor.

 

[ihc1470]

I have never noticed any resistors in the brake light system on my truck for the tail/brake light system. The flat bed has led lights for everything, tail, clearance brake, and backup. I pull a trailor often and it has regular bulbs. Makes no difference if trailor is on or off. And I have never noticed any issues trailor on or off. I do know LEDs can make issues though.

 

[IDIBOBS]

I have never noticed any resistors in the brake light system on my truck for the tail/brake light system. The flat bed has led lights for everything, tail, clearance brake, and backup. I pull a trailor often and it has regular bulbs. Makes no difference if trailor is on or off. And I have never noticed any issues trailor on or off. I do know LEDs can make issues though.

Are you running an E4od?

 

[ihc1470]

No 5 speed.

 

[DirtyWood]

I have never noticed any resistors in the brake light system on my truck for the tail/brake light system. The flat bed has led lights for everything, tail, clearance brake, and backup. I pull a trailor often and it has regular bulbs. Makes no difference if trailor is on or off. And I have never noticed any issues trailor on or off. I do know LEDs can make issues though.

I'm surprised your ABS light doesn't come on at about 36mph. I had a flatbed with all LED lights and noticed that as soon as I hit about 36mph the ABS light on the dash would illuminate. After much internet searching I finally found info from Ford stating that this was normal behavior when one or both tail lights was non-functional. I wired in 1 resistor on a tail light and the issue went away.

 

[DirtyWood]

This may already be common knowledge but, I had the dash apart fixing a few things and since I was in there I put some new LED lights in the gauge cluster. I had read not to use an LED for the battery light so I used a stock incandescent bulb there. Well, If you use an LED buld for the ABS dash light it will cause the brake to not function correctly and that new super bright ABS bulb will stay on any time the key is on. I changed it back and ABS light works as normal and the brake RABS is back to normal as well. Weird. This was my experience any way. I would have never thought that changing a dash light type would have caused that issue.

I'm surprised the dash lights are wired in like that since it's not as easy to replace them as it is a tail light bulb, thanks FoMoCo.
Do the new LEDs dim properly?

 

[DougBoy66]

I'm surprised the dash lights are wired in like that since it's not as easy to replace them as it is a tail light bulb, thanks FoMoCo.
Do the new LEDs dim properly?

To be honest I have not checked to see if they do or not. Between getting the 30 years of dust cleaned off the gauges and lens cover with all the lights functioning it looks 100% better.

 

[ihc1470]

The only time I have seen the ABS light on was when it got low on brake fluid. Not saying there may not be resistors some where in the truck, I just have not noticed any in the back and I redid the trailor plug last winter and had most everything undone back there.

 

[DougBoy66]

The only time I have seen the ABS light on was when it got low on brake fluid

This just happened because of the dash light itself. My experience anyway. Just switching the dash bulb for the ABS to LED caused a problem with the brakes system. Going back to the original bulb and the problem went away. Hopefully it saves someone else from making my mistake