Lights, camera, action

S&M Lighting No 303

 

A picture of the center tail light was what first caught my eye on the Boles. For some reason I just thought it looked cool.

I've spent a lot of time sorting out the exterior lights on my '48 Boles. Over the years there's been a mishmash of new lights installed and some of the "more recent" choices were falling apart, not to mention they were just not very pleasant to look at. And the original lights needed some TLC as they were rusted and the wiring had rotted away.

In addition to the center-mounted S&M Lighting No 303 brake light, the Boles had four side marker lights. They are Pell-Lite No 300 "beehive" type marker lights. Only the front amber lights still had the original glass lenses. The rear red lenses were some sort of plastic when I purchased the Boles.

Pell-Light No 300

Original Pell-Lite Amber Glass Lens

Finding an old Pell-Lite is pretty darn difficult, and finding replacement glass was just impossible so I found a couple J.G. Co red glass lenses on eBay that had a similar profile.

Red J.G. Co lens next to the Pell Lite lens

After removing the rust, replacing the GE 1155 bulb bases, and making new gaskets (using Becky's scrap book cutting tools) I now have a decent set of side marker lights.

I'm told the Boles originally came with side marker lights and a rear center mounted stop light. Originally there were no rear left or right turn signals. Large "cake light" style left and right brake/turn signals had been installed along the way.

The cake lights were surface mounted and when I removed them I found holes for two beehive type lights on each side. I'd guess one for a brake/turn signal and the other for a typical running light. Modern trailer light wiring from the tow vehicle mixes the brake and turn signal onto a single line for each side: right turn/brake and left turn/brake. There is no single line for "brake".

I searched around for something to replace the cake lights. There are lots of recessed lights but most are too thick for the Boles walls. I ended up buying some die-cast Signal-Stat 3600. They are a knock off of a popular Yankee model that's used on a lot of the 1960's "canned ham" and Airstream trailers.

Signal Stat 3600

Thin enough to fit inside the Boles walls

In the end though I decided I didn't want to cut a large hole to recess the Signal-Stat light. I decided to reuse the holes I'd found and install a couple beehive lights. As I mentioned before finding Peel Lites was impossible so I decided to use a trick I'd seen online. I used some cheap modern Optronics BU11CS lights with some vintage glass lenses I purchased on eBay. The Optronics are knockoffs of a Yankee 975 but they are cheap stamped metal instead of the chromed brass of the Yankee. As suggested online I coated them with clear lacquer to stave off the rust.

Optronics with vintage KD Lamp Co 510 glass lens

I ended up using a mix of Griffin Lamp Co and KD Lamp Co glass lenses because that's what I could find. They have similar profiles to each other, but they are different from the Pell Lite and J.G. Co lenses.

KD Lamp Co 510 and Griffin Lamp Co lenses

The final things to sort of was what to do with the center mounted brake light. As I mentioned modern trailer light signals mix the turn and brake signals so it's not obvious how to wire a center brake light. After searching around I found a diode arrange specifically made to mix the left and right signals to feed a center-mounted brake light. But it can only handle 1.5 amps and the typical GE 1156 uses 2+ amps. To address this I purchased an LED replacement for the GE1156. It uses about 0.2 amps so it should be fine.

Before I installed the lights I did a bit of polishing around them since it will be more difficult later. I only used the course grit of polish but that's enough to show the potential of doing a full course of polish.

Boles with tail lights installed