Quote: Great Idea!!
Inner Socket fit outer socket reflector cavity and vice versa; metal portions of both sockets match each other right down to the extra wide notch that appears to align/orient the outer socket bulb. (The inner light housing does not have the protruding tab for orienting a bulb)
The other thing to check is the focal length—that's important. What you'd want to do is get an 1156 bulb, install it in the inner socket, and hold the inner and outer sockets right next to each other to see if the outer socket holds its 1157 bulb with the bright filament at the same height as the filament of the 1156 in the inner socket. The 1157 has two filaments; the one closer to the glass is the dim filament and the one below it, closer to the base, is the bright filament. You have a little more leeway with LEDs than with filament bulbs, but it should at least be pretty close. And you may have to experiment with different clock positions of the socket in the inner lamp to make it fit and light up the reflector/lens correctly. Once you find a position that works, make a line across the socket and reflector body so you can easily align it in future.
Quote: If the goal is to get the inner taillight brightness matching the outer taillight brightness (only) would the extra wire be best just capped off?
You could do that if you want, but why not double the size of your brake light?
Quote: Said another way ......turning the inner light into a brake/blinker would add additional load to the light circuit?
Two LED bulbs take a fraction of the current of one incandescent bulb; you stil net out at much lower load on the circuit.
Forgot to mention: You will need to swap in a new turn signal flasher, that's this one (2-prong like original; connect its ground wire conveniently).
Quote: as well as protecting what's left of my 65 Dart sad lenses from further deterioration due to bulb radiated heat.
That, too. Goes especially for '64-'66 Valiant-Barracuda cars; the angle of their lens means the part directly above the incandescent bulb tends to melt/divot.
In case I haven't previously mentioned it: you have to be really picky with LED bulbs. Most of them on the market are unsafe junk, including all of them you can buy from the likes of SooperBrightLeds, eBay, and places like that. They all claim they'll give you the world on a gold platter—most of them will make you more(!) likely to get hit in traffic. Please see my detailed discussion of the matter here.
There are a couple of reasons why I listed two red 1157s to try: first is the physical fit issue; one may fit where the other doesn't. But even if both fit, they're still a basically different kind of light source than the lamp was intended for, so just because it physically fits doesn't necessarily mean it will work safely and effectively. You'll need to assess the performance in your particular lamps by comparing them side-by-side with the original incandescents as reasonably well described here.
The bulb for back-up lights is this one (haven't yet found one it doesn't work well in, though in '63-'64 Darts you have to make sure it's rotated with one of its faces pointing directly at the lens).
Things get trickier with the front turn signals. You have to look carefully at the lens. If yours is the kind of lens that has a circular bullseye in the middle with concentric rings around the bullseye, that's a Fresnel lens and it magnifies and distributes light by "looking" directly at the bulb, so you need a bulb that emits light straight out the front. There is no legitimate, effective 1157 bulb that does this in any colour other than red, and a lot of our cars have these Fresnel type front lamps, so for them there is no effective LED bulb upgrade. Note that a variant of Fresnel optics uses straight lines instead of round rings; many back-up lights have these including '60-'63 Valiants, '63-'65 Darts, and others.
If your front lenses don't have the bullseye-and-rings optics, and the bulb has a reflector bowl behind it, then you can try out these (per the test/comparison method linked above) and see how they do.
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