Ha, Ha, ha!  I nearly choked the first time I drove an '80 Vanagon and
that red LED popped on!  I *promptly* went to a local electronics
surplus store and plopped down a buck-n-a-half for the rare blue LED.  I've
been blissful since.  Then I got my later Vanagons and thought "cool --
VW finally found some blue LEDs, too", but was later disappointed to find
they were just bulbs.

The real difference between "high brightness LEDs" and regular ones is the
*focus* of the lens.  High brightness ones have very clear lenses and
shine a beam that is maybe 12'.  You can take the LED out and frost it with
sandpaper (while killing the lens focus) to get a more reasonable pattern.
Make sure you have the correct dropping resistor as well (about 600 ohm?, I
can't recall).  I found a diffused LED, and my '80 already had the dropping
resistor.

Malcolm

> Just be glad you don't have the original Vanagon highbeam
> indicator in your bus.  It was a RED in '80.  It drove me crazy.
> All of my finely tuned VW instincts were triggered whenever I
> turned on the brights.  RED LIGHT, RED LIGHT, WARNING, WARNING!
>
> Fortunately, during the troubles and travails I had with the odometer,
> I managed to end up with a later version with the green LED.  Actually,
> I searched for one with a non-red LED.  Much better.  The
> Green Light On chapter in the Idiot book kept popping into
> mind, but much less distracting than the red light.
>
> Jeff
> > I decided to replace it with one of those newer 'high brightness blue
> > LEDs' and when I took apart the instrument cluster I found it wasn't
> > really an LED but a little incandescent hiding behind a little
> > 'dummy' LED.
> >
> > The new one did work, maybe too good since I am thinking of tearing
> > back into the dash and change out the resistor value that sits in
> > series with the light so it won't be too bright.
> >
> Kevin,
> My '81 has a green LED for the high beam position, which is identical to
> the turn signal indicator LED, so it's not too bright or too dim.
> Granted this is not the traditional color of the high beam indicator
> light, but it works well for me.
>