I'm finishing refurbishing my rear fog lights('rechroming' and case repair) and got to a stage where I powered them up on the bench last night, they look great but within 2 minutes they are way too hot to touch! :O
The red lense is scorching hot, no wonder the right one melted in the past.

It cant stay like this, especially since its eating 1.7A per bulb so I'm thinking LED. Anyone tried it there? Any problems with bulb failures on the dash? Which one you've picked? There is so many types.

 

What model year?

 

pre-facelift, 3.6 1989 but I suspect the facelift might have the same issue.

 

I replaced all my dash globes with LED and I've had a few of them fail, I bought them a few years ago before they were as common as they are now.

They have not failed completely just one SMD LED on a few multi LED T10's, they blink which is annoying. I plan on pulling the dash and replacing them again with newer ones.

I also removed the fibreoptic unit and replaced with strip LED's for the AC controls this was successful and I have no problems these LED's

 

It seems no one tried it so I've decided to buy three different types, first one just arrived so will try it and report later.

The melted fog light:

https://goo.gl/photos/LHGtnZf12p7zVNCX6

and a refurbished one:

https://goo.gl/photos/4fvacTnBLBPp3XhZ6

I'll be replacing the dash bulbs with LEDs for sure but that might take some time. Already replaced most in my x300 and it didn't complain so fingers crossed

 

mine is a different year, 1984, and I replaced my dash lights, actually the interior lights with LEDs, my problem is that the dash lights will not dim unless I retrofit a restate. the dimming switch in it now is the original and of course LEDs were not available back then. I also changed the exterior lighting to LEDs, but then my light out indicator comes on, so I pulled them for now untill I can get the parts to correct it. With justing the XJS back on the road after about 3years of work I want to enjoy driver it until time to put it up for the winter

 

Just to confirm, I've used 500 lumen bulbs and they are not as bright as original tungsten bulbs, if anyone would like to give it a try then best to purchase 700 or 800 lumen bulbs, I think the 500 lumen one is approx 25% darker.

https://goo.gl/photos/FW3mk69PjQFBvo9z5

They use less power, both as can be seen on the pic less than half an amper, instead of 3.5 and of course barely get warm

 

LED's should dim same as a regular bulb to a certain point when they will just turn off. My LED dash lights dim with the original dimmer pot.

If you have all LED exterior lights then the light out indicator is of no use so you could just remove the bulb from the dash. Or you need to add a resistor across the LED to simulate the current draw of a regular bulb negating the power advantage of LED's.

 

guess I will have to try some other type of LEDs. Don't remember were i got mine, but that will be a winter project as I am enying the car with the nice weather