Parking light comparison

[GTRS Fiero]

Has anyone compared stock, TFS amber, TFS clear, and BTR clear parking lights?

[GTRS Fiero]

These are images of stock amber light assemblies:




Notice how dark these lenses are?  I'm not sure if thy were dark from the factory or not, or if that is due to age.  My '85 Camaro had similarly dark lenses.  Also, the back of the assembly is black.

[GTRS Fiero]

Although the part of TFS is 51504 for their amber parking light housings, both the LH and RH housings show the same 51500 physically on them.  Oddly, the housings for the BTR clear parking light housings also show 51500.

There isn't really much to difference, other than the lens colors.  The backs of the housings are identical chrome:


They are the same width:



The same height:


The lenses are both flat and the same thickness:


These are both LH housings, in case you're wondering, but you can vaguely see the markings in the first image.

Since I have other lenses, I gave these a fairly good test to see if the lenses came loose.  My original TFS clear lenses seemed fragile, right out of the box.  Both the TFS amber lenses and the BTR clear lenses seem to be quality products.

I'll have to dig the other lenses out of storage, one day.

[GTRS Fiero]

I tried to get some pictures showing how the lighting works, but was unable to get more than a glow with a flashlight (wrong bulb, not inside the reflector, and not enough lumens).  I'll try again later with the correct bulb.

[GTRS Fiero]

Just to tie up the loose end here, I heard back from BTR.  As I suspected, their clear lenses are from the same vendor that TFS used.

BTR did, however, resolve the issue with the glue failing.

So, there you have it.  TFS amber lights are a great replacement for the stock lenses.  If you want clear, BTR one-upped the quality on the clear lenses TFS used to sell.  Either solution is a plug-and-play stock replacement.

Darn, I still need to show them with a bulb, so I guess I haven't tied up that loose end.

[Raydar]

No big. We get it.

I'm happy to see BTR selling these. I was working on a "clear lens" solution, but I couldn't compete with BTR, at their price point.
More power to 'em.

[GTRS Fiero]

Well, I tried to answer the questions I had, and then share them.  I am still curious about lighting brightness and distance comparisons.  I'd also like to compare to LED bulbs.  There seems to be a lot of ”looks brighter to me” info.  I don't have any way to test lumens, but I have a laser measure.

[GTRS Fiero]

The original parking lights had little alignment points, or something that sticks up on 3 corners, but the new parking lights from both TFS and BTR do not.  You can seem them in the pic below.


Doing a side-by-side comparison, you can see how much cleaner and brighter the new light is.