Amber bulbs

Offset pins are to prevent a dual filament lamp such as a combined side/ indicator lamp being fitted incorrectly.

Nothing whatsoever to do with lamp colour, the system pre-dates coloured lamps by many decades!

Chris

No. Bulbs can be anything. The difference between an amber and white bulb is the colour.

Err, no. Those are stepped pins, ie one is higher up the cap than the other. By offset I mean if you look at the bulb from the base, one pin is at 12 o-clock, and the other is at approx 4 o-clock.

I now find that there are bulbs which are opposed pin (like your normal clear indicator or sidelight bulb) which are amber, and are used to counter fading of amber lenses, being cheaper to replace than whole lamps.

Steve

Amber bulbs use a different offset - the pins ain't spaced at 180 degrees. Dual filament ones are offset vertically.

Where did you find them?

and sometimes radially too.

I've found both.

They were delivered yesterday with the indicator lamp. I was changing the lamp because the front lens had gone AWOL. When I ordered it, I asked for a pair of bulbs because the ones that were in there were faded, so I wanted to do those as well while getting it ready for MOT. I assumed that the bulbs supplied would fit the lamp. I hadn't met this kind before, hence my OP. If you're after some, they are lucas LLB 343. Amber ones with the offset are LLB 581.

Steve

Thanks - I'll do a Google. Halfords as of today only stock the 581.

And I've just Googled on indicator 343. First hit is for Halfords...

Ah, right. Never seen those.

sierras were one of the first I saw radial and stepped offset bulbs in, so they have been around for a while

Are you saying radial offset and stepped in the same bulb? I can't find any like that in the lucas book. . Steve

I am fairly sure it is radial offset and stepped, they were on sierras with the brake light separate to the side light . I have seen many where people have tried to stuff a standard bulb in. Early ones were conventional with the side and stop in the same lamp, late ones combined the side with the fog, but I'll look and double check tomorrow. The other weird one was the front side light bulbs in volvos with daylight running lights, they look like a standard stop/tail, two filaments, but not the standard stop and tail, they were reversed so that the tail was the bright one, stop the dim. I can't remember what they did for pins as I haven't seen one recently

You can't have any amber bulbs then since they're all like that.

The OP disagrees:

"I just spent 5 mins in the rain trying to fit an amber front indicator bulb to an old astra, only to find that the pins are in line rather than offset. I thought amber bulbs were supposed to have offset pins and clear ones have straight pins. Have I got duff bulbs, or have things moved on while I wasn't looking?"

Chris

That was the first time I was aware such things were available. I checked my local Halfords and despite having several 'rows' of amber bulbs and two makes they were all offset pins. Presumably to stop you fitting clear ones.

They are apparently a special to use in a normal fitting which takes a clear bulb where the amber lens has faded.

Absolutely and definitely, I have in my hand (or did) a stepped and radially offset pinned bulb that looks like a std stop and tail but is not. 12v 21/4 watt (stop and tail has the low number first) no real reference or make and definitely for certain models of sierra (I had written that on it)

or

Yes - I mentioned earlier on that Halfords list them. But neither of my two local branches actually stock them. Not surprising given the confusion it would cause.

But not many would actually buy something like this mail order given the postal charges.

What I was saying is the offset pin types are the norm - and have been since amber bulbs became common. For obvious reasons.