"reversing" reverse LEDS?

[TT_Vert]

I am looking to replace some 1206 (  actually think they are 3014's but those are harder to find) red LEDs in a radar detector I own and am looking to keep the height of the LED down as these sit under a light pipe.  I am also considering going w/ a 70-90 deg. beam LED since I'd rather not have the LED that is illuminating light up the other pipes and bleed over to the adjoining pipes..   Looking on mouser and digikey the only narrower beam angle LEDS are all fairly tall (1.5mm+) except the reverse LEDS which I can find in  1.1mm.  Am I correct in thinking a tighter beam will help prevent bleeding of a color into another light pipe?  All of the LEDS on this detector are red normally so I don't know that light bleed was an issue w before but I am going to make the KA band blue, K green and KA yellow.   Looking at these image on mouser it seems the pad is on both sides and I could actually mount these so the led doesn't go through the PCB and faces up, do any of you see a problem with this?  Am I barking up the wrong tree thinking a narrow beam will help with this? Unfortunately all the light pipes are molded together so I cannot just fabricate something to block the light between each of them.  I've included a pic of the detector and the LED.

I am also going to be doing something similar w/ the bottom 8 strength indicator leds

Thanks
Dave