brighter running lights?

I wasn't quite sure where to post this so I figured this was the best place. I smoked out my tail lights and my blinker lights in the front and as expected they are much dimmer. The tail lights aren't too bad but the side front blinkers are pretty bad so I was wondering if anyone knew a way to make them brighter like some brighter bulbs or something. thanks in advance for the help

only two options, and i don't think you want to remove the smoking you just added. take a bulb to the parts store and see if they have a brighter one with the same dimensions and mounting.

Or try looking for a aftermarket hi-intensity LED replacement bulb.
I've seen them in places like auto zone marketed at the "tuner" crowd.

Make sure you didn't smoke them out too much if you used the lens paint. I had to sand off the first attempt at smoking my front blinkers because I put too much on and they came out charcoal gray, and allowed no light through.

Edit: Side front blinkers suck, and don't put out any light one you smoke them out. The reason is they really don't have a reflective coating inside their housing to reflect and project the light. I believe you are pretty much stuck with that small square area that blinks now rather than the whole lens. I would try a higher intensity bulb though.

what year is your xj if it has sealed bulbs there are conversion kits that convert them into regular headlights that take h3 bulbs hope this helped a lil

I didnt smoke the head lights just the markers. My Jeep is a 1997 and yah I looked inside and saw that there is absolutely no reflective material inside of there just the white plastic which is pretty pathetic on Jeeps part in my opinion Becuase they sucked before too. I havent done the markers under the headlights yet because I ran out of the paint so I gotta make a run to the Summit Racing store to grab another can I guess while I am there I will try and hunt around for some higher intesity bulbs.

Most of the marker lamps should take a #194/#169 bulb, which is quite common. This means that a high-intensity version should be available (akin to the 50W #1156 bulbs I like to use for reversing lamps & turn indicators, and the 50W #1157 bulbs I like for brake lamps.)

Check with the "tuner boyz," small parts houses (which usually have a better selection of weird stuff,) and even JCW - all are possibles. NAPA may have something like you could use, but I'm not sure.

As Begster said, there's not reflective coating in the side marker lamps (or the front marker lamps, come to think on it,) so there's nothing to really focus the light. I'd like to see someone correct that, but I've got too many ideas floating around as it is (and not enough money or time to execute them all. Too much going on for the last couple of months...)

I have seen like "Chrome" paint before thought about maybe taken the dremel and cuttin the lil rectangle area the bulb sits in and hittin it with the chrome paint and then gluein it all back together. I have never used this "Chrome" paint before so I don't know if the quality would be good enough to work. I also thought of doin the same thing but instead of painting the inside I figured I would just make a lil LED board and stick that on there and see how that worked out. What do yall think of those ideas?

Ben824 said:

I have seen like "Chrome" paint before thought about maybe taken the dremel and cuttin the lil rectangle area the bulb sits in and hittin it with the chrome paint and then gluein it all back together. I have never used this "Chrome" paint before so I don't know if the quality would be good enough to work. I also thought of doin the same thing but instead of painting the inside I figured I would just make a lil LED board and stick that on there and see how that worked out. What do yall think of those ideas?

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I've thought of the LED board with hi-flux units. If you want to use paint, you're going to have to separate the lense and the backing plate, paint the backing plate, and then stick it back together.

The aftermarket clear lenses on ebay have reflective lining. Those should be easy to smoke and still be visible. That's my hope and plan anyway--I've bought a full set already but haven't gotten around to doing them up yet.

ehall said:

The aftermarket clear lenses on ebay have reflective lining. Those should be easy to smoke and still be visible. That's my hope and plan anyway--I've bought a full set already but haven't gotten around to doing them up yet.

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Clear? Don't forget coloured bulbs, then...

I just wish Hella would come out with a "Black Magic" version of their E-codes to match the rest of a good blackout job...