Dome light

[VicCrownVic]

Have to be careful with exterior lighting, I seem to recall coming across a thread where someone had blue lights in those coach lamps between the front and rear door and they were hassled by "the law" about it. I'm sure it depends on the state.
I've got blue LEDs in the interior of The Ice Car as well. Dome, doors, floor, cluster, glove box, ash tray/cup holder. Everything other than the map lights. I like the idea of the blue illuminated door locks, the thought never even crossed my mind.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yeah, they might bother me but I guess I'd do it and then let them hassle me if they wish. Goddamn fascists...

[Elias]

Have to be careful with exterior lighting, I seem to recall coming across a thread where someone had blue lights in those coach lamps between the front and rear door and they were hassled by "the law" about it. I'm sure it depends on the state.
I've got blue LEDs in the interior of The Ice Car as well. Dome, doors, floor, cluster, glove box, ash tray/cup holder. Everything other than the map lights. I like the idea of the blue illuminated door locks, the thought never even crossed my mind.

YEAH Been wanting to do the locks but only thing is it’s not one of those same 124 bulbs or at least I couldn’t figure it out how to tear it apart

[Elias]

Good lord, what happened to the rest of the dome light? Has to be the rustiest one I've ever seen haha. I once thought about putting purple lights in my Opera/Coach lamps but just decided to keep everything stock. I like the time warp effect.

Hahaha funny thing is never really payed attention to the dome light I probably should polish it up. I does look bad now that I notice it (y’all telling me ) hahahha

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Have to be careful with exterior lighting, I seem to recall coming across a thread where someone had blue lights in those coach lamps between the front and rear door and they were hassled by "the law" about it. I'm sure it depends on the state.

If you can find a state that allows blue lights on civilian vehicles I'll be pretty amazed. Hell your own state allows even the boring old amber rotators for civilian use only on snow removal, roadside assistance, mail/newspaper delivery, and private security (think campus or mall cops) vehicles, and only in the line of duty - meaning if you ain't actively doing one of these things, your rotators should be off. Blue, red (high-intesity red, not brake lights red), and green are considered emergency-use colors pretty much anywhere in the world, they signify the vehicle running them likely has a whole lot better reason for hauling ass than you do. Like, someone's life may (and often does) depend on it - some places overseas actually allow green rotators or flashers to be used by doctors on a house call that they consider urgent, it's likely a carry-over from days of old where ambulance was not always available or needed, but still it illustrates the point well. And here in the US many states allow green to be used by utilities company vehicles responding to a gas leak or downed power lines call - again it's a situation where time is of the essence and every minute the vehicle in question is delayed from reaching its destination is a minute during which people can get seriously hurt.

Yeah, they might bother me but I guess I'd do it and then let them hassle me if they wish. Goddamn fascists...

No, they're not being fascists - purple isn't an emergency color that I know of, but still, it will distract people and they don't really need any more reasons for that. So please don't add more confusion to the already messed-up (thanks to cell phones mostly) public roads environment - if you wanna be cool make your coach lights into turn signals, that's not just neat but also has a safety purpose to it as well, win-win setup in most anyone's book

[DerekTheGreat]

"Lets convince people they need to do things our way and this is why it's 'better'. Then we'll create laws so we can enforce our way and thus force people to conform cause if they don't - pens and financial penalties await under the guise of 'better and safer. After so much time the people may even embrace it like it was their own idea and then pass it off to others on their own!" Yep, sounds a lot like fascism to me. "..Now you're under control so you do what they tell ya.."
"Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems"

[86VickyLX]

"Lets convince people they need to do things our way and this is why it's 'better'. Then we'll create laws so we can enforce our way and thus force people to conform cause if they don't - pens and financial penalties await under the guise of 'better and safer. After so much time the people may even embrace it like it was their own idea and then pass it off to others on their own!" Yep, sounds a lot like fascism to me. "..Now you're under control so you do what they tell ya.."
"Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems"

Do whatever you want. Stick it to the man. Fuck da police and all that other shit...


Back to the matter of this post. The clear dome light is an excellent piece to get. I also had run blue LEDs in my interior. But I got tired of not being able to see anything, so I changed them to clear LEDs.

[kishy]

I'm not going there - one way or the other - about fascism. But the whole system of coloured lights is designed for people to immediately and without doubt be able to recognize and identify the vehicle.

Unfortunately there's some variance on this regionally but I can tell you how it is here:

Purple, particularly strobing, is used to designate funeral vehicles. Blue, often also with amber, is snow removal. Blue in combination with red is police. Red in combination with white is fire or ambulance.

What is the probability that a battered wife running out of her house late at night being chased by her abuser will approach an 80s Town Car with blue coach lamps because she thinks it's a police vehicle? 1 in a million? 1 in a billion?

But that's why the regulations are what they are.

[DerekTheGreat]

...But the whole system of coloured lights is designed for people to immediately and without doubt be able to recognize and identify the vehicle...

...Purple, particularly strobing, is used to designate funeral vehicles. Blue, often also with amber, is snow removal. Blue in combination with red is police. Red in combination with white is fire or ambulance.

What is the probability that a battered wife running out of her house late at night being chased by her abuser will approach an 80s Town Car with blue coach lamps because she thinks it's a police vehicle? 1 in a million? 1 in a billion?

But that's why the regulations are what they are.

"Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems"

Right, it's that way because "they" said it should be. I'm not saying it's wrong I'm just calling out for what it is - fascism. A higher power forcing others to conform to their ways. After awhile it becomes something along the lines of "We do it this way because we've always done it this way." or "It's how I was taught." Bah. And good point about the wife example, you're absolutely right but because of their laws, here's a fine payable to such and such court by such and such date, thank you very much. Don't you dare to do something other than what we told you to do, because laws. Be a good citizen, conform and keep your mouth shut or else. That's the message I'm left with.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

What is the probability that a battered wife running out of her house late at night being chased by her abuser will approach an 80s Town Car with blue coach lamps because she thinks it's a police vehicle? 1 in a million? 1 in a billion?

That may be so. But if you were the brother or father of said battered wife, and she got hurt real bad because she was so scared she could not think clearly and thus ran towards a vehicle that was not there to provide her the help she needed, how would you feel about the driver of said vehicle that confused her so? Especially if they proved to be piece of shit and just drove off and left her standing there? Because let's face it, these days that is exactly what most people would do (situation is even worse in China where they will literally watch you bleed on the pavement to your death because they are too afraid you will sue them for all they got if they attempted to help you and thing went wrong).

Back to dome lights, I'm not a very big fan of those that box Panthers came with. Seems to me the later style (Taurii and OBS trucks got them, some aero Panthers as well I think) has a better light spread, by design of the lens not just based on its color. The map-light portions of the assembly certainly are more of a flood-type on the later models as opposed to the spot-type Elias is working with. Which I suppose can be a good thing and a bad thing, depending on what one's personal preferences are. Thing is tho, I've found nice and bright dome lights to be particularly blinding when vehicle is parked somewhere with little to no ambient light - sure you can see everything inside while the light is on, but the moment you close the door and the light goes off you can't see anything outside for quite a while till your eyes adjust. To that end I'm thinking of switching my door-operated dome light to red - it's a great color for night use as it's easy for the eye to process and thus you don't need much of it to see what you want to see, yet after it goes off you got a much easier time adjusting to the total darkness. This would work rather well with the later (Taurus/OBS-style) dome light as its "map" lights are capable of completely illuminating everything below and in front of the light fixture, so if the red "night" light isn't enough one can always just turn the map lights on and voila, everything is brightly lit. In a typical Panther application that would leave the rear seat in the dark tho (pun intended), which in case of 4-door trucks is solved by adding a 2nd dome light fixture above and behind the rear seat as well - this can be copied to passenger cars as well, for you peasants and rabble-rousers who do not drive Lincolns with factory-provided rear reading lights in the C-pillars Key thing here is tho, I cannot turn my dome light on from the headlights switch like they are done from the factory, it's been disconnected from there and is now only powered by the door switches so it's physically impossible for me to have a "distracting" color interior light on while vehicle is in motion. In a passenger car without a cargo lamp fixture, I suppose the main lights switch can be left connected to the underdash and underseat lights, this way one could still see if they dropped something while driving without blinding the fuck outta themselves with a white and bright dome light at the same time. Which was actually the main reason my dome light got unhooked from the main lights switch - I could never see inside the bed with that big artificial sun right above my head causing everything in the cab to reflect off the rear glass. Now switch does cargo light only, so no more self-blinding by means of dome light.

[sly]

+1 the dome in the 93 is soooooo much better than those chromies in the boxen.

[GM_Guy]

I put a dome light from a later panther, might have been a later model ford extended cab pickup truck in the box, can't remember now, but it used the same screws as electric terminal mount as the box. Lots better, and I not as suseptable to accidently turning on the map light if you are putting stuff/taking stuff from the back seat.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Word of caution on those newer assemblies tho, don't leave your dome lights on for too long, they generate a lot of heat and there is very little space around the bulb - you will end up burning up the plastic base around the bulb, and maybe even damaging the switch that's next to it. LEDs may solve that problem, haven't tried yet.