Reverse Lamp LED Conversion

So on 4 January, while satisfying my OCD need to clean the less visible parts of the car, I decided to spend a few minutes during the afternoon, and later at night, to see how the latest LED bulbs compare to the OEM back up lights.

I had done substantial research and decided I wanted to find, and then try, the brightest LED bulbs possible.  A few years ago I had experimented with back up bulbs on my GT-R, and ended up installing an HID bulb - mainly because the GT-R only has one reverse light and in the dark it can be hard to see while backing up.

Anyway, the results were discouraging back then, and I still was not sure whether LED technology had improved to the point where such bulbs, even at high lumens, were comparable to good halogen bulbs. There is also the issue of the reflectors being designed for halogens which emit light in all directions versus LEDs which tend to shine light in one direction.

Flash forward a couple of years, LED technology seems to have improved - my research had found these as the (claimed) brightest T16 size LEDs available in Japan - in fact the retailer is a mostly Toyota/Lexus LED bulb specialist so naturally there was a price premium. However their claims of 900 lumens, being 340% brighter than a regular white bulb, as well as using Chip On Board (COB) technology (which I was totally impressed with in a mod for my GT-R), convinced me to take a chance and buy a pair.

They arrived the day after I ordered... thank you Amazon!

I first used a special tool I had recently picked up to remove the clips holding the lining to the trunk lid:

Interesting how Lexus uses Velcro ensure the lining stays flush with the trunk lid!

Yellow arrow is the back up bulb... note the wiring is held in by a clip. The clip has to be undone, otherwise there is not enough slack in the wiring to remove the bulb from the trunk lid-side housing easily.

iPhone photo comparison

So as the above photo shows, despite supposedly being 3.4x brighter and 900 lumens, the OEM halogen bulb on the left still seems to be brighter.  Or maybe it's the camera? With the naked eye the difference didn't seem this large.

Nikon DSLR photo

This above photo is more accurate as to how I saw it. I did try to do a comparison, by using my hand to shield each bulb in turn to see which lit up the back of the garage better.  (Incidentally, the halogen got hot very quickly but even these COB LEDs stayed cool...) But during the day it was hard to tell. From the perspective of a car behind me, the LED obviously looked whiter and cleaner.

iPhone photo at night

When I covered up each bulb in turn, admittedly the halogen seemed to cast more shadows than the LED bulb - implying that the halogen was indeed brighter.  I then opened the trunk to see how the lights would look on the ceiling of the garage:

But the difference is slight, I think. The LED seems to have a more focused light than the halogen, if anything.

But as I had come this far, and if the difference was indeed slight, I decided to install the LED on the right side as well. And then see how these lights worked when viewed in the back up monitor from the driver's seat - would there be an improvement?

Again iPhone photo, no flash, both LEDs installed.

Oh, and if you're wondering about that OEM ISF alloy wheel in the corner... well I hope to have a blog post about what I was doing soon enough!

Nikon DSLR photo, without flash.
Compare the brightness of these LEDs with the OEM LED bulb used to light up the license plate.

What's interesting is that, while from the outside the halogens do seem slightly brighter, from INSIDE the car, these LEDs clearly work better with the back up camera than the OEM halogens.  I initially believed the difference to be one of color - one can see clearly in the rear view mirrors that the LEDs provide a whiter light - but on the navigation screen, the light coloring and brightness seemed to be the same.... until I took a close look at what these following photos revealed:

Backing up - OEM back up lamps while braking

Backing up - same spot in garage - with the LEDs and braking... see the difference?

While the rear view camera appears to automatically adjust to get the brightest image possible, the LEDs (second photo) allow the camera to transmit a cleaner, crisper image.

Even without brake application:

OEM back up lamps, no braking

LED back up lamps, no braking

Everything is crisp and there seems to be more definition, and there is no yellowish tinge.

So my conclusion is that even if not quite as bright in relative terms with the halogens, to the extent these LEDs work well with the reverse monitor camera, I will use them until either someone comes out with an even more clearly brighter LED, or there is a need to put the halogens back.

Oh, and now that I've tinkered with some LEDs...I've begun to research what other bulbs in the ISF can be replaced with LEDs that actually improve the lighting. Stay tuned!

Some New Year Cleaning... Part 3

After the New Year celebrations I found myself on the holiday, Monday January 4th without anything to do.  The weather was nice, and even though I was relatively satisfied with how clean I had gotten the car, I decided to fool around a bit... famous last thoughts because I ended up working on the car until it got dark!

Anyway, first order of business was, I was wondering about what lay under all that plastic under the hood.  Turns out Lexus uses some very clever plastic clips which, if pushed down past the initial indent, allow for easy removal.  Once I began taking all the clips off, and began peeling off the plastic covers, I discovered this:

See all that dirt that had been trapped underneath the cover...

And you can see all that dust and dirt on the front strut area too! Amazing...

Dust and dirt on the plastic boxes and the front strut area on this side too

You can see the dirt on the bottom side of the cover as well

So of course, these pieces had to be washed with some Simple Green and cleaned up

You can see all the visible dirt all over... what to do?

Liberal application of Simple Green, being careful not to spray into what appear to be electrical items, and using a soft brush to make sure that all surfaces are cleaned. 

We ended up with all the rubber and plastic items cleaned up:

(Most) Everything is clean. 

Tower bar area...nice and clean (and yes, I applied Zaino AIO there too)

It goes without saying that I applied Zaino AIO to all painted surfaces under the hood. Then, it was just a matter of applying some engine protectant/detailer.

This stuff is good, but must be applied sparingly...

With the center cover back on... I actually like the way this looks, except for the half painted front frame.
Would look so good if it was all steel under the hood was painted to the same level as the rest of the body.
Yellow arrows point to the painted areas that got cleaned up and to which I applied ZAINO.

Meanwhile, while I was waiting for the plastic cover pieces, as well as the detailing spray to dry, I realized one minor detail I had yet to tackle:

Those exhaust outlets need some TLC!

So simply washing the car didn't remove this burnt on stuff...

The chrome polish easily took the crud off the top one...

So while the chrome polish made short work of the top exhaust outlet, the crud on the bottom one did not come off no matter how much I tried. So...

Time to use some mechanical help...

Now nice and shiny!!

I repeated on the other side, and then used some Black on Black spray instant black spray to bring the black back to the inside of the exhaust tips (after cleaning them out of course)

Look like real exhaust pipes? LOL. Who knows how long they will stay that way...

Put everything back together, and applied some more Aerospace Protectant

Done! Clean enough to eat off of!

Truth be told, there was one additional NON-cleaning item I took care of that day, which I will cover in my next post. Stay tuned!

Some New Year Cleaning... Part 2

A few days after doing the initial Zaino AIO application right as the year end holidays began, I found myself with a free afternoon on the 31st. So of course...

First, I decided that even though the exterior was still fairly clean (from the wash 3 days prior), I had to redo the wash and Zaino application, this time taking more time to manually apply the Zaino in places I had missed like the inside door jambs.  However, before I washed the car, I decided to do the interior first.

A quick vacuum to get rid of the dust UNDER the carpets, in the center console, etc.

The vacuum first was necessary because I planned to use this, which promised a "New Car Scent"

I had picked this item up on a recent trip to the US. Would it work or would make things worse?

Here it is in action:

Amazingly, this one didn't seem as toxic to higher life forms as the one I used previously

While the interior was being re-freshed, I quickly washed the car, starting with the wheels:

Something else I had picked up a while ago but never had a chance to use

 Combined with a spray cleaner that converts brake dust to a disgusting purple liquid:


Although I plan to get rid of these curb-rashed wheels, might as try to get as clean as possible. But I'm not spending 200% effort like I would with the wheels on the GT-R.

Pretty nasty stuff - the Brembo calipers don't leave much space actually.

Once the wheels were done, I wetted down the car, and yes even though a nice foam sprayer would be nice, simply used a mitt and the Zaino Z-7 car wash.

And of course the two bucket method....

I found that the use of the brush allowed me to get more areas...
will need to apply some tape to the metal part to prevent scratches in the future.

From there, I simply dried the car and then first hand applied the Zaino AIO to areas where the Porter Cable could not reach properly - this includes the rear spoiler as well as around the windows and badges, the mirrors, door jambs, etc.  Then I applied the Zaino to all large areas using the PC.

Actually this was DURING the hand application of Zaino, right after I had dried the car

As I let the Zaino dry, I then went back and applied the Zaino leather treatment to the entire interior (last time it was only the driver's seat), as well as Aerospace Protectant on vinyl and other plastic areas.

The Zaino leather cleaner in action

Not sure if you can tell, but here are photos of before, during and then after:

Before application to the side bolster

Application and scrubbing it in...

And afterwards. See any difference? No? Me neither... although it did feel a bit softer than before

This is good stuff. I used it on all rubber seals on the doors and trunk as well.

The last thing I did on this day was to polish the headlights. It's not that they were noticeably yellow but since I had all my stuff out, and fading light, decided to finish for the day with something that I would be able to relatively quickly.

This stuff really works!

In the past, I have used the Poorboys SSR2.5 to revitalize some cars that had some paint fade, and used it in once on my GT-R, but since then hadn't had a chance to use it. What's nice is that this starts out as a medium grade abrasive but then as you buff, the abrasiveness goes down. So, you end up with very little scratching.

Anyway, by this time I thought I was done... but it turns out I wasn't! See my next post for what I had forgotten to do...

Some Year End Cleaning... Part 1

It's a Japanese tradition to clean, clean, clean at the end of each year, so the new year can begin a new, or at least in the cleanest possible condition. Cars included. So while it's now impossible at this date to drop into a detailer to get the car professionally cleaned, most people with cars do take some time to do what they can to clean their cars, whether by machine, or hand.

Now I've already done the wrong thing by having the ISF washed by machine, this time I took the time to do things by hand. 

Right before the year end, I had just picked up the car from the dealership - I had found a slight rattle (a big no no for any Lexus) in the dashboard and they took a couple days to take the dashboard apart, locate and eliminate the source of the rattle.  In any case, the car was freshly hand washed when I got it back, so of course I jumped at the chance to apply some of my favorite car polish/sealant - Zaino (in my efforts to keep my GT-R clean, I have plenty of this stuff at home...gotta use up!).

At the dealership, saw this very nice red IS350, so naturally had to take photo for comparison purposes

Specifically, this time I decided to simply use their all-in-one product, Zaino AIO, because it has some minor cleaning properties, and it also gives the car the Zaino slickness, sheen and protection we know and love.  Oh, and because I wasn't going to spend time eliminating all swirls and then sealing with a clear sealant like Zaino Z-2 or Z-5, because I will eventually take the car to RAPT to get taken care of anyway.  Incidentally, the paint is in pretty good shape (no bumps I can feel using the saran wrap test) so I didn't bother using a clay bar.

From: http://www.zainostore.com/product/Z-AIO.html

I didn't take any photos of the application, but simply used my Porter Cable machine and an orange pad.  Machine apply, hand buff dry, then apply the Zaino Z-8:

From: http://www.zainostore.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=Z&Product_Code=Z-8&Category_Code=shinemaintenance

The car looked like this when done:

This was actually the next day...interesting how the blue looks different when using the iPhone (first photo) and my DSLR. 

I then decided to take care of the interior - beginning with the driver's seat.

First time using this - the Zaino leather cleaner

Used a shoe polishing brush (soft bristles) to get the cleaner in all the crevices

Dark spots are the dirt that got removed - so not as dirty as I thought

What was amazing (and I didn't take a photo) was that the leather ended up with a satin-like sheen - so it looked brand new I guess. But as I was rushing, I then went ahead and applied the Zaino leather protectant.



Application of Z-10 results in the leather feeling softer and supple. Oh, and it smells like a brand new leather interior now, which I personally love (most Japanese cars with leather, do away with the smell because Japanese consumers don't like the treated leather smell).

So now my car looks pretty good (still need a pro to buff out all the small scratches) but the interior is nice and clean, and smells awesome.

But you know what, I wasn't satisfied with this level of clean... so after the New Year's, I decided to really get OCD. See my next post...