John Deere LED Lights: What Fits Each Lamp Position

A dealer counter gets the same call every autumn. A customer has a John Deere with a lamp out, harvest starts next week, and the question arrives as a photograph of a broken housing rather than a part number. Somebody then has to work backwards from the photo to a part that actually bolts on.

We manufacture direct-fit LED replacements for John Deere equipment, and this is where most of our North American enquiries start. This guide is the reference we use internally: what sits in each lamp position, which LED replaces it, and the John Deere numbers each one supersedes.

The short answer: if you have the OE number, start there — it identifies the position, housing and connector in one string, and our John Deere range cross-references 326 of them. If you only have the machine, work position by position: hood, cab roof, cab corner, fender, rear. Confirm four things before you call anything direct fit — mounting pattern, connector, voltage range and beam function.

Start from the part number, not the photograph

A John Deere lamp number encodes what a photograph cannot. RE181963 is a hood light for a specific housing generation; AL215077 is a rear tail lamp on a different family entirely. Two lamps can look identical in a photo and take different connectors.

Every product in our John Deere range carries its OE cross-reference in the specification table, and the category page carries a lookup box that searches those numbers directly. Type RE269638 and it returns the two lamps that carry that cross-reference — the bottom-mount cab, fender and work light, and the pedestal-mounted oval flood — so you pick by mount rather than by guesswork. There are 326 John Deere OE numbers in that index today, alongside 1,402 machine models for the cases where the number is illegible. The same lookup runs on the tractor lights category, which carries 511 cross-referenced numbers across all makes.

If the old lamp is too damaged to read, the fallback is position plus series — which is what the rest of this guide is for.

The five lamp positions on a cab tractor

The naming matters when you order. John Deere calls the same physical part different things across parts catalogues, so the OE number is the only unambiguous identifier. For how lamps are laid out across a working machine rather than a single tractor, see our agricultural machinery lighting guide.

Hood and headlight positions

The largest group in our John Deere range: twenty-six parts, from 20 W inserts to 65 W hi/lo units.

Note the left and right split on the 7020-7030 outer hood. Those are not interchangeable, and ordering two of the same hand is the most common ordering error we see on that machine.

Cab roof and cab corner

Cab corner lamps are amber marker lamps, not work lights. Specifying a flood in that position gives the operator glare off the cab glass and does nothing for road presence.

Fender and rear positions

Rear lamps split into two jobs that get confused on order forms. A stop/tail/turn lamp is a road-legal signal lamp. A rear extremity amber lamp is a warning lamp for transport width. They are not substitutes, and they carry different warranty terms in our range — five years on work lights, one year on signal lamps.

What "direct fit" actually has to match

Four things, and a lamp that misses any one of them is a return.

Mounting pattern and handing. Bolt centres, stud orientation and — on several positions — which side of the machine the lamp is built for. The 7020-7030 outer hood pair is the clearest case: YW-9045L replaces RE181916 and RE205361, OW-9045R replaces RE181913 and RE205362. Same wattage, same housing family, different parts. Where a lamp is handed, our number carries an L or R suffix.

Connector. This is where most near-enough parts fail. A lamp can share a housing and take a different plug, which means splicing on a machine still under warranty. It is also the field we are least willing to guess on: connector type is recorded per part in the specification table, and where it is blank we say so rather than assume.

Voltage range. Our John Deere range runs 9–32 V DC as standard, which covers 12 V and 24 V machines without a converter. Confirm it rather than assume it — some legacy signal lamps are 12 V only.

Beam function. A hi/lo hood lamp has two functions on two circuits. WL7820 at 65 W and WL6700 at 60 W are both hi/lo units; replacing either with a single-function flood of similar wattage leaves the operator without a low beam on the road. Wattage alone does not tell you this — the function line does.

Where our range stops

Being explicit about the gaps is more useful than filling them with a near-enough part.

Newest R-series rear positions. Hood and cab coverage on 6R, 8R and 9R is solid: WL8620 and YW-3046 cover the 6M-9RX outer and inner hood inserts, YW-7601 the 6R-9RX upper cab, YW-7602 the 5E-9RX bottom-mount cab and fender position. Rear is thinner. We hold YW-1045 for the 30-9R rear extremity amber warning lamp and YW-1020R for the 6R right-hand tail lamp, but there is no matching left-hand tail lamp in the range today, and no rear coverage above the 9R. We would rather quote a lead time on a build than ship an approximate lamp into a road-signal position.

Bracket-mounted floods. Several flood lamps in the range mount by bracket rather than into a John Deere housing — WL-0180 at 18 W and WL130F at 45 W among them. They have no fitment list because there is nothing to fit into; you choose them by mounting space and beam, not by machine. That is a different selection path from everything above.

Sprayer and combine sub-positions. Coverage here is partial and position-specific: YW-3030 for the S-T-W combine upper cab, WL9000 for the 9000-STS inner cab, WL6046 for the oval flood that supersedes RE331642 on R4030–R4045 sprayers. Outside those, ask with the OE number and we will tell you plainly whether we have it. Machines that work through the winter have their own problem set — heated lenses rather than fitment — which we covered in heated LED plow lights.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find the John Deere part number on a lamp that still works?

It is usually moulded into the back of the housing or printed on a label behind the lens. If the machine is still on a parts plan, the dealer parts diagram lists it by position.

Will an LED replacement work with my existing wiring?

If the connector matches and the machine is 12 V or 24 V, yes — the 9–32 V range covers both. LEDs draw considerably less current than the sealed beams they replace, so the existing harness is not the constraint.

Do I need to change all the lamps at once?

No, and most customers do not. The usual sequence is hood first, because that is where the brightness difference is most visible, then cab roof, then the rest as they fail.

Are the left and right lamps interchangeable?

On some positions yes, on others no. The 7020-7030 outer hood lamps are handed, and so are several tail lamps. Where a part is handed, our part number carries an L or R suffix.

What certification documentation is available?

Documentation is available on request for the parts in this range. Tell us the destination market and the part numbers and we will send what applies.

Can you supply a full set for one machine?

Yes. Send the model and we will list what we have for each position, and say plainly which positions we do not cover.

Browse the John Deere equipment lights range, or send your OE numbers and machine models and we will confirm fitment before you order.