Rear Window Flashers

Hi,

It may have depended on the country and local requirements, but AFAIK all Italian and German cars had them before getting replced by flashing indictors, FIATs, Alfa Romeos, Lancias, Ferraris, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Auto Union, Opel, etc. Jaguars were fitted with flashing indicators in USA from 1950, but ROW had trafficators for many years more, until flashing indicators became the norm everywhere.

Cheers!

Good point about using too large a festoon bulb. Mine are both working so I won’t mess with them. I flip them out several times if I need to make a lane change.

I followed the rabbit down the Wig-Wag hole and found they were first used on 1936-38 Studebaker and were vacuum operated.




Then there was a competitor or variation.

These days the term is used for the alternating flashing head lights on emergency vehicles.

The idea of the wig-wag comes from the railroad world where since about 1860 swinging a red light was used to indicate a stopped train or meant “stop your train”.
Some very rural rail crossings with low traffic still have them.

1 Like

Also, early air braked trucked used a wig wag to indicate low pressure.

If I could find one of the wig wag lights… third brake light on the Jeep!!!

Those Wig Wags are quite charming and entertaining. A working one would be quite an attraction at a show.

A bit more detail on the festoons I have for mine. Lucas festoons have the glass tubes reduced slightly at each end to receive the brass conical caps, so that the diameter does not exceed that of the glass. The glass tubes should be no more than about 1/4" or 6mm, for an internal gap of about 7mm.

I purchased some LEDs and though they are the correct glass diameter, they are not reduced at the ends and the cap therefore is fractionally larger. This barely touches the plastic, so they will do. It’s an annoyance that they didn’t mark the ends with + & -.

1 Like

The LEDs festoons that I use have no polarity and the seller now offers a choice of end cap diameters so no need to squash them like I had to do. Mine are OK at night but they really need to be quite a bit brighter for any modern motorist to see them in daylight.

Peter

Following on from my flashing LED rear lamps I have now added flashing LEDs to the front. I never use the fog lamps so I have copied the 1950s Rolls Royce and Bentley cars by using them as indicator lamps. https://youtu.be/ojxUlLjZNiw

I did that with my fog lights on the XJ40, lasted until the next WoF (Warrent of Fitness) thats required every 6 months, the inspector pointed out that they needed to be orange not white :imp:

Another mod I have just carried out on my XJR is a diode running from the brake lights to the rear fog light.
Now when I depress the brakes I get all the red lights going, the diode prevents back feeding to the brake lights should I ever use the rear fogs.