Why are 7442NA bulbs so hard to find?

My SR5 uses 7442NA bulbs for the DRL & Turn & Parking lights. (One dual filament bulb per side)
I like to keep spare bulbs on hand, so I've looked around, and can not find 7442NA bulbs. There's plenty of LED replacements, but that's not what I'm looking for.

The 7442NA is an Amber 28W/8W dual filament bulb. I've found cross references to lower wattage bulbs, like 7440, 7443, and 7444, but no 7442NA. Does anyone know what's up with this?

 

The owner's manual says my truck uses 7442NA bulbs. What's actually in the truck are 7442NALL. The LL is supposed to mean long life. (I knew that)

I finally found some on Ebay, listed like this:

Toshiba Electrical Turn Signal Lamp Bulb 7442NALL

They were $8 each, including shipping, which is less than the $12 each ones that I found elsewhere. And they are indeed dark amber 28w/8w bulbs, unlike the lighter colored 7444NA 21w/5w bulbs that my O'reilly's called "same thing". Would they work? Sure. But they are NOT the same thing.

 

If shopping over the counter Pep Boys, Auto Zone, etc. You will look for 7443A bulbs.

 

7443A is not a 28w/8w bulb either. It is also a lower wattage 21w/5w bulb.

 

You're right, the dealer would be the best bet. I'm running 7443A on my Off-Road because didn't want to pay dealer prices.

 

P/N for OEM is 90981-15030

 

Thanks

 

Any Good quality Led replacement for the 7442 na LL? Long life, dual function and amber but brighter?

 

If you go LED you risk hyper flashing.

 

Putco makes a 7443 resistor for LED conversion. 32 bucks + s&h. Im gonna give it a shot on my SR

 

Then you remove the blinker relay, crack it open, and replace the flat bar with the appropriate diode and it stops doing that.

 

Any more info on this? Wiring diagram, pictures, explanation of changes, etc?

 

The only thing that seems to work well for a gen 3 SR or SR5 is to use 7442NALL bulbs.
I'm perfectly OK with that. I have spares on hand and now I know where to get more.

 

I've done it on several different cars, I have yet to try on the Taco. There is a bias metal piece in the blinker relay that makes the blinking happen when the voltage doesn't match up. Its old tech and easy to bypass. I'm going to try it next week if the LEDs fast flash.

 

Cool. If you don't mind, could you snap a pic if you end up digging into the flasher module?

 

That'll be kinda hard to do on a 3rd gen Tacoma.



There isn't a flasher module.

 

To clarify, 7442A and 7442NA are the same bulb, provide the exact same function and are interchangeable. Every auto-parts store should carry 7442A. The difference between 7442A and 7442NA is 7442A is an 'amber coated bulb', 7442NA is a 'natural amber' bulb, in otherwords the single A designation means the bulb uses an amber coating on the glass, the NA means the bulb uses amber glass. An amber coating will eventually peal off, amber glass (NA) will not flake or peal and amber glass will be more of a deeper amber color than a coated bulb. OEM uses NA as it is a higher quality product. The LL designation after that just stands for Long Life.

 

I can confirm 7443’s will work just fine. After removing my amber oem bulb (and breaking it at the same time) I went to the auto parts store to only see 7443 bulbs. I wanted clear/white bulbs. That’s why I removed the amber bulbs. So I’m googling and run across this thread while standing in the bulb section at autozone and end up purchasing the 7443 bulbs. They work fine. Now I have white daytime running lights and white front turn signals like I wanted

 

and now ive changed them back to amber because white turn signals look terrible IMO

 

i put amber LEDs in mine and there is no hyper flash. no resistors needed