smoked and LED'd tails
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smoked and LED'd tails
so i purchased some led clusters intended for a Peterbilt, and went to town..
highly recommend using smaller circles than i did.. sorry for the poor quality pictures, cellphone cams suck!
anyone else done retrofit LED's?
highly recommend using smaller circles than i did.. sorry for the poor quality pictures, cellphone cams suck!
anyone else done retrofit LED's?
Thread Starter
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Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 2,106
yeah, very difficult to catch with my cellphone. they're brighter by about 50% than stock, which was the point of doing LED's.. i didn't really want to smoke the tails, but believe me, after the carnage that has to go on inside that housing, you pretty much have to smoke them or you'll see what had to go down to make the LED clusters fit. lots of cutting, slotting, swearing, etc etc
Thread Starter
Banned
SL Member
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 2,106
ok quick DIY now that i have a moment to breathe at work.
pull the taillights out of the car.. you'll need a dremel with a cutting wheel on it, as well as a regular rotozip type bit. slice off the shroud (that touches the car, has the gasket on it) in the area you'll be working. it's best to cut off as big of pieces as possible as you'll be bonding this all back together later. once you have that shroud removed, mock up with a silver sharpie approximately how much you'll need to cut off to make the light slip in. remember, aiming the LED's is very important, so don't get the circuit board in there too tight. several trips to and from the car will be made ( i had a spare battery i set in the trunk for testing purposes) to get the lights aligned properly.
if you use standard semi-truck lenses, the boards will have to be trimmed and slots cut in the signal and reverse bubbles so you can slip it in place. careful trimming the PCB as the edges generally carry a common ground for the LED's so if you cut it.... you lose almost all of the LED's.. don't ask me how i found THAT out hehe.. if you do end up cutting the ribbon off, simply jumper from one solder terminal on one side of the broken area to a common one on the other and you're back in business.
once you get them aimed right, start glueing the boards in place as well as double checking alignment. you should have 3 wires coming out of the board, as well as a voltage regulator pod. i epoxied these inside the housing, but out of sight. make sure and mark where these wires go as you'll have to crimp them on to existing wiring in the trunk..
ehh ok i'm tired
will finish later
pull the taillights out of the car.. you'll need a dremel with a cutting wheel on it, as well as a regular rotozip type bit. slice off the shroud (that touches the car, has the gasket on it) in the area you'll be working. it's best to cut off as big of pieces as possible as you'll be bonding this all back together later. once you have that shroud removed, mock up with a silver sharpie approximately how much you'll need to cut off to make the light slip in. remember, aiming the LED's is very important, so don't get the circuit board in there too tight. several trips to and from the car will be made ( i had a spare battery i set in the trunk for testing purposes) to get the lights aligned properly.
if you use standard semi-truck lenses, the boards will have to be trimmed and slots cut in the signal and reverse bubbles so you can slip it in place. careful trimming the PCB as the edges generally carry a common ground for the LED's so if you cut it.... you lose almost all of the LED's.. don't ask me how i found THAT out hehe.. if you do end up cutting the ribbon off, simply jumper from one solder terminal on one side of the broken area to a common one on the other and you're back in business.
once you get them aimed right, start glueing the boards in place as well as double checking alignment. you should have 3 wires coming out of the board, as well as a voltage regulator pod. i epoxied these inside the housing, but out of sight. make sure and mark where these wires go as you'll have to crimp them on to existing wiring in the trunk..
ehh ok i'm tired
will finish later
