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MG MG Y Type - Rear lights

Anyone ever fitted rear stop/ tail lights to Y type rear wings? How do you get over the curve of the wing? I know YTs have lights but they are a bit small for modern use.. Any photos appreciated.
D MULLEN

Have you considered upgrading the D lamps to LED David? This will give you more lumen output. Also I have my turn signal indicators mounted on stalks attached to the rear bumper irons.

Paul
Paul Barrow

Have you seen the LED reflectors available on ebay?
The ones I looked at have 2 levels of brightness - stop/tail

They are 2 1/2" diameter

ebay item number 282433836806 - there are other people selling them, this is just the one I saved.

I don't know how good they are as I haven't bought any yet as my car is a long way from being on the road but was thinking of fitting these instead of big light units and/or possibly some small strip LED lamps mounted just under the bumper to work as indicators
C Woodridge

The YA I used to own had rear indicator light fitted to the wings by a previous owner. On removal I found they were made out of baked bean cans. see attached picture.
Peter

Peter Vielvoye

I have converted both my YT D lights to tail and brake lights and fitted LEDs all around. (make sure the LEDs you buy have the correct earth) I have added an extra reverse light on a stem off the bumper bar (MGA flood light).

You could adapt TD ones like on this Y at the Australian 70th Anniversary weekend. The owner I believe shaped the chrome surround to fit the Y wheel arch/guard.

Stuart Duncan

Hi David,

What is the aim of the exercise ?.

There are a few cars here in Australia that have fitted LED tail/brake lights to the rear parcel shelf in saloons & the rear windows of YT's. These lift the lights to the eyeline of drivers in following cars.

Some Export YT's (not Australia), had indicators in the rear wings, but not stop/tail - they remained in the D-lamps.

Cheers

Tony
A L SLATTERY

A previous owner has fitted indicators to the bodywork to each side of the boot lid. Whilst it doesn't look as professional as the baked bean tins it does keep all the wiring inside the car,

John F
J Foster

Thanks for the comments - the aim was to make it easier for cars behind to better notice the stop lights in sunny weather. I have fitted a small high level brake light in the rear window which should help. I might convert to LEDs but on eBay you can get LED bulbs with the correct bayonet fitting that are a direct replacement for the stop/tail bulbs. My car is currently positive earth.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2X-1157-BAY15D-T25-P21-5W-50-SMD-1206-LED-Brake-Turn-Stop-Tail-Light-Bulb-White-/282117834271
D MULLEN

Converting your car to negative earth is easy & very worthwhile with modern accessories like Sat Navs & phone chargers & Retro Radios. You can get positive earth LED's, but it's just more trouble in my opinion.

Go negative, fit all the LED's you can find & get better lighting for free, just forget the past - you won't regret it.

Cheers

Tony
A L SLATTERY

David,
The lamps you linked to on Ebay- are they suitable for Positive earth.
On the web page they say "If the LED does not light up, simply flip it 180 degrees (reverse the polarity)"

I can't see this can work as the pins on the lamp/fitting are off-set.

Have you actually bought and tried them?
Many thanks.
Keith
Keith D Herkes

I'm all in favour of avoiding being kicked up the rear end by another half blind driver. These mountings were cut from some hardwood off cuts [teak I think] and rough shaped with a rasp and then coated with matted fibre glass, fibre glass sticks to wood like they were made for each other. I found it far more easy to achieve the desired shape and any mistakes can be re coated with fibre glass. I modified the lamps for stop/tail and fitted a festoon turn indicator lamp. Bryan

B Mellem

By the way I converted the polarity back in the 1960's both on my YA and Ford 105e Anglia. Forget all the myths about changing ignition connections just change the ammeter around and the car will run for the next 50 years - no trouble Bryan
B Mellem

Don't forget to reverse the coil connections as well
David
D P Jones

Hang on a minute-are you telling me that to set up my nearly-finished YA, with its standard (rebrushed etc ) dynamo, standard distributor and standard coil, all I have to do to convert to negative earth(with all its advantages) is to switch the ammeter wires over and reverse the coil connections? In my ignorance,I would have thought it was more complicated than that.
Yours, John.
J P Hall

There is one other little matter. You need to change the field coils on the dynamo. Disconnect the F cable (smaller one) from the dynamo and run a temporary wire from the positive terminal of the battery and touch the dynamo terminal you have just disconnected. You need to have changed the battery around first!
Reconnect the F wire and off you go.
P M Grafham

I never changed the coil connections on either of my cars because its an auto transformer ie a continuous winding one end [E] the other [HT] tapped part way along [CB]. When the contact breaker opens the capacitor resonates with the coil inductance no mater what the polarity is. Bryan
B Mellem

if the dynamo is replaced or the car stored for long periods it should be re polarised by touching the field winding stud with a wire from the battery, this establishes the dynamo output polarity.

On the matter of +ve earth there was much discussion back in the 1960's as to why it was done in the first place, and the conclusion was since most electrical connections were by brass or copper onto the steel frame then electrolysis action would occur with -ve earth between dissimilar materials. It was concluded that it made no difference what the polarity was.

Another theme was did car radios need to be modified which in those days were valve sets, and the conclusion was it depended on the make. Valves work on high voltage of about 200 volts generated from a 12 volt vibrator supplying a transformer, clearly the vibrator is not polarity sensitive so the radio was OK. The exception was the BRIMER valve sets that worked at only 12 volts but since the reception on these radios was so poor no one purchased them anyway. Then along came transistor radios which did cause problems but by then most car manufacturers had switched to -ve earth.
B Mellem

This thread was discussed between 27/06/2017 and 26/07/2017

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