Replace map lights with LED bulb - Need Help (Pic inside)

[Tomerico]

I'm in the middle of converting my Astro (2005, 2WD, Passenger) to a camper.
I have an additional battery for an electric cooler and to charge my computer.
But as for the lights i thought I'd use the car's battery and just change the interior lights to LED. after looking around I thought to myself that it would be best to change just the map lights so i won't have to go all the way to the front each time I want to turn the lights on/off.

So I checked and found that the bulb is 168, looked around and ordered this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006R3 ... UTF8&psc=1

And that's what I found out:

Pic 1, took off the black base with bulb from the lens structure
Pic 2, took the original bulb out of the base and put the LED one, so far so good
Pic 3, how it should look with the base inside the the lens structure
Pic 4, how it looks with the LED bulb, it won't go all the way in, which prevents me from putting the structure back inside the socket in the van..

Any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Tomer

P.S
I looked around and couldn't find an answer on google or in this forum before posting this.

[doyoulikeithere]

well, it seems pretty obvious that the led bulb is a lot bigger and wont go thru the hole.
I suppose you could cut the hole, so you could get the bigger bulb thru, but then you may find that its too big to fit into the reflector portion.
I suppose you might also end up buggering the holder. Have you looked for another style of LED bulb that fits?
The one pictured is simply a lot bigger than the bulb it should be replacing.
I suspect it would be a problem in a lot of different applications. Its huge.


I just use these cheap little things.

[CaptSquid]

Try this one:

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/led- ... -50-68843/

[MountainManJoe]

can you separate the lens from the reflector?

[VanGoGo]

I ran into that problem as well, it only took a tiny bit of trimming on the plastic to get the LED bulb to push all the way in.

[photo_van]

I ment to post a write up on this as I changed out all my dome and reading lights to LED last fall. Now ebay has dropped the items from my purchase history so I'm not exactly sure which lights I bought I'm pretty sure they were these http://www.ebay.com/itm/251030245118?ss ... 1423.l2649

I've used them for around six weeks of camping and they are great. I used one to read by almost every night. A nice bright white light that is way easier to read by. I'll see about posting some photos of the light output tonight. BTW, no trimming necessary, just plug them in.

[doyoulikeithere]

I ment to post a write up on this as I changed out all my dome and reading lights to LED last fall. Now ebay has dropped the items from my purchase history so I'm not exactly sure which lights I bought I'm pretty sure they were these http://www.ebay.com/itm/251030245118?ss ... 1423.l2649

I've used them for around six weeks of camping and they are great. I used one to read by almost every night. A nice bright white light that is way easier to read by. I'll see about posting some photos of the light output tonight. BTW, no trimming necessary, just plug them in.

Thanks for the news. I have ordered some Red & Yellow turn signal LEDs and white B/U too, tried to get the brightest ones I could find. Hope they arrive soon.