I have a set of NOS IR military truck driving lights I am about to wire into my hunting truck. The bulbs in them are 4811 incandescent PAR 36 sized bulbs but they are 24v (actually 28v). I was going to replace them with 12v bulbs to wire into the trucks 12v electrical system. When I was looking at PAR 36 sized bulbs I got the bright idea I could replace them with LEDs or something else. The OEM bulbs are white light bulbs that sit behind an IR lens that filters out the visible light. When I was looking at PAR 36 sized LED bulbs, I noticed a lot of them say they dont emit UV or IR.....which would totally defeat the point. Are all LED lights like this or are there recommended ones to use that give off lots of IR to pass through the filter? Or halogen bulbs? Since its such a standard sized bulb there are lots of options. Has anyone done this before?

LEDs do not emit IR wavelengths like incandescent bulbs do. That is why there are separate IR emitters/white light emitters in the Surefire/streamlight and fenix flashlights/weaponlights.

Thanks- I had seen IR specific LEDs just wasnt sure if the visible ones emitted IR. Would halogen bulbs do better or worse than incandescent?

I don't know specifically if halogens would be better or worse, but they work very well with an IR filter.

I put some PAR36 offroad light housings in a couple of pairs. They take the replaceable Halogen inserts - H1 or H2? I would have to check. They were a hair loose so I shimmed them with aviation cable sheathing. One of the nice things about filtering incandescent to get IR is that if your headlights ever go out you can just pull the filters and have a spare set of white headlights. These work OK. My type-specific IR headlights blow these away, though.

Incandescent lights are very broad band and give a lot of IR.

LEDs tend to be very narrow band and generate very little IR if that is not their primary band. That is part of why they are so efficient.