| by schuss, Feb 05 I've tried this several times in order to perfect it (this is actually version 4) so hopefully i've worked out the kinks. Other than cutting some wires, there is no permanent modification to your car's parts that a soldering gun and some solvent won't fix, so you can always go back to stock if you want (silly!). Also, i've tried to include any appropriate cautions regarding hurting yourself or breaking your stuff, but it's not my fault if you do it anyway! So be careful, measure twice and cut once, etc. No, i will not teach anyone to solder over the phone or IM... The one fault i've found with this (and haven't been able to resolve) is that the resistance of the LED's is different and makes the car think you have a burnt out brake light, ALWAYS. So whenever you hit the brakes you get the little red light on your dash for that. Increasing the resistance on the circuit would only make the LED's dimmer (lame) so until i figure out a way to adjust the threshold of the sensor or otherwise disable it, that's an annoyance. I find it a minor bother, and frankly don't even notice the red light anymore after a few months, and the tradeoff is worth it to me. If i figure it out, i'll post it up.
Requirements:
- Basic soldering skills
- Possiblity of not driving your Z for about 24 hrs
- A TTZ with older-style (flush) spoiler with integrated 3rd brake light. NA hatch folks, and new-spoiler folks, probably the same wiring for you but the pics won't look quite right; you're on your own!
Tools you should already have:
- Soldering iron (duh - see above)
- A couple plastic clamps are a good idea
- Basic garage stuff (pliers, screwdrivers)
Materials:
- Silicone gasket (clear or black)
- Model cement or some other strong, quick-drying, *non-conductive* adhesive that remains flexible and will not get brittle at winter temperatures, or melt into goo in the summer
- Electrical tape (i love this stuff)
- Rubber grommet
- A couple small scraps of ABS plastic
- 18 or 22 gauge wire, two (hopefully different colored) pieces about 12" each
Things to buy:
- One 12" white LED bar from TheLedLight.com, for $19. Their item tag is actually "CH_LEDBAR_WHT"
- One 6" Bar to Power Supply Jumper (same link, "CH_BARJUMPER") for $1.15 - not required but makes it sooo easy.
1) Disconnect battery (or at the very least the brakelight fusible link, in front of the battery, it's the red one - i sometimes live dangerously, but you've been warned). Open the trunk most of the way.
2) Take out your third brakelight. There are two phillips screws on the bottom. They slip through a lower black plastic bit that just pops off, and thread into the two holes you see in this picture:
( ^^ looking up at the assembly from the bottom)
The three bulb holders in the back turn a quarter-turn counterclockwise and then come out.
3) Using a small screwdriver, gently pry the red lens away from the black housing. It's just on there with black silicone-type stuff. This is a part where you don't want to rush - get too crazy and you'll crack something. Just small increments, with a small pry tool, moving around it until the seal is broken and you can gently pull the red lens towards the back and up (relative to how it sits when on the car). Now you should be able to see the inner clear lens:
( ^^ orientation is as if you were standing behind the car looking at it)
4) The clear lens is held in by two inch-wide plastic tabs on the top and bottom (circled in yellow, below) and two small ones on each side (circled in blue). The large tabs have no clip to them - once you loosen the small side ones, the clear lens will slide straight out easily. Along the top of the black housing is a metal plate (green arrows) that the clear lens rests over. This may come off with the clear lens or you may have to pull it off after - it will probably fall off later so just take it off now. It has no clips or anything; it's held on only by the clear lens.
( ^^ In this picture, the metal plate is still in the black housing)
5) Clean as much of the leftover gasket off the black plastic and red lens as you can. Clean surfaces will stick better later. Just scrape it off with a screwdriver or small chisel - it should come off pretty easily.
6) Let's break something! I picked these LED bars cause they're cheap and easy (like me!). They come in 12" sections, with a breakpoint every 3". So they can easily be turned into 2 - 6" bars, or 4 - 3" bars, or whatever. In this case, we want one 9" bar, as that's all that fits in the light housing. You'll have a 3" bit left over for your next project. Take note that one end has the white plastic wire connector that matches the wire harness you bought for $1.15. We want to KEEP that end. So break the last section off the OTHER end. Just grab on each side of the breakpoint with two pairs of pliers, and bend slowly downwards, away from the side with all the electronical bits on it. DON'T GRAB ANYTHING IMPORTANT WITH THE PLIERS. Keep them on the circuit board - don't crush an LED or something.
( ^^ So in this picture, you would bend the board long-ways away from you, towards my ratty jeans-covered knees)
7) After I broke my circuit board, I clipped off the protruding ends of the abandoned connection and used electrical tape to protect the raw end so it won't touch anything important. Can't be too careful! I also taped a couple pieces of it the length of the backside of the board, again just in case it tried to touch something. Don't tape over the LEDs (duh) or any of the other electrical bits. They need to dissipate heat and light and stuff to do their jobs. Just the back is enough.
8) Again with how cheap and easy this LED strip is! It's already 12V, so it's a no-brainer. And since you were so wise and spent the extra $1.15 on the wire connector, you just plug it in to the white connector on the board - easy! It should only go in one way, but it doesn't hurt to make note of how it fits and check the +/- symbols marked on the board, and determine which wire will be your positive and which your negative. Unlike incandescent bulbs, LEDs only work if wired the right direction, so make sure you're on top of that. Figure it out, and mark it with a sharpie or some tape.
9) Those little wires aren't going to be long enough to work with later, so grab that 12" of automotive wire you collected and extend these two leads. The harness comes with cute little spade terminals; I cut those babies off and stripped and soldered my wire onto the ends. This is a permanent install, kids - no pinchy connectors or twist-and-tape. Don't forget to mark your new wires positive/negative. Once this is done, and you've taped off all the soldered connections, now would be a good time to make sure your lights work. Touch your positive and negative leads to something 12V. I used a little universal AC/DC adapter from radioshack that i keep around for this stuff. You can (eek) use your battery. Just be careful, mkay? Notice how quickly the LED's light up! That's why they make great brakelights. Also, i know it's pretty but don't stare directly at the thing too much...
10) I like to over-engineer things, so before i plugged in the white wire connector for good and taped it all up, i put a few dots of the model cement in, on and around the connector, to make sure it won't fall out. That's why i specified a non-conductive adhesive.
11) Let's work on the housing a bit. If you haven't already, clean the rubber crud off it. Here's mine pre-crud removal, with the metal plate still in:
( ^^ the red tape is just to cover the little ventholes while i'm working, as they're full of sticky gunk and i didn't want it to spread)
12) Since we're not going to be using those three bulb holders on the factory setup, we should plug those holes to keep water out of the light assembly. One of the holes would be a good place for our new wires, if it was a little smaller. Thus, the grommet on the right:
In the other two holes, i cut small circles of some ABS plastic scraps i had lying around (it's the blue stuff) and used a thin bead of cement to seal off those holes. Apply some clear silicone around the edge (from the inside) after the cement dries just to lock out any moisture.
13) So if your lights work, and your glue(s) are starting to dry, you can start putting things back together. Make sure the metal plate is back in the housing, and test fit your LED strip:
If it fits, a bead of cement along the top and bottom edges will hold it in, but don't forget to push your wires out the back thru the grommet first! Try to keep it centered left-to-right, and notice how mine is resting ON TOP of the grooves in the bottom where the clear lens's large tabs are going to need to go. Don't block those or things won't go back together.
14) While that glue is drying, you should still be able to carefully handle the project. Try to hold it with the LEDs pointing skyward so it won't tip inside there. Put the clear lens back on. If you want, that is... The clear lens dissolves the light left-to-right, while the red lens disperses it vertically. You can leave the clear lens out, making your LED's look less like a solid light and more like 9 vertical stripes of light, but marginally brighter. Up to you. Downside is you'll be able to peer thru the red housing and totally see your handiwork in there. I like it better with BOTH diffusers, even if it seems about 5% dimmer that way.
15) If you can still hold things carefully and not jar the LED strip loose, lay a bead of your clear/black silicone around the black housing where it will meet the red lens. Doesn't take much, and too much will make a mess. This is the messy part, and that stuff smells nasty, so open a door/window!
16) Slide the red lens back on, wipe off the extra silicone around the outside, and apply your clamps:
This is the part where you wait. Most silicone sealers require 24 hours to cure properly. You want it to cure BEFORE you put it on the car. So go play GT4 until sometime tomorrow...
17) 24 hours Later... Silicone should be dry, so let's make sure everything's working. Note your positive and negative wires (you did mark them, right?) and touch them to your 12V Dc source. Pretty!
18) You can take the clamps off now. And rub off the extra silicone with your fingers, clean up everything with a rag, etc. Find the black plastic fitting that goes over the screw holes, and set it near the trunk, along with the 2 screws and a phillips driver.
19) Wiring on the car is next. There's not a lot of room behind the lens assembly for wires, and we're adding a few more, so i'd highly suggest cutting off the whole three-bulb harness right where it goes to just two wires. It's no fun wrestling with all that clutter. Strip those two wires. On my 91, they were BLACK (ground/-) and GREEN w/ RED STRIPE (hot/+). I would HIGHLY suggest testing them with a test light or multimeter, by connecting the battery and stepping on the brake (or rigging it with a pole, or enlisting a friend). Mark them, and disconnect the power when you're done testing.
20) Make your life easier and use some masking tape or something non-marring to hang your light assembly within easy reach of it's home (like from the trunk hatch clasp) or recruit a gullible friend to hold it up there. You're going to need both hands free.
21) Solder those babies together! Then go connect the power again and hit the brake, make sure it works. If so, tape things up. If not, make sure you don't have the wires backwards...
22) Lights work, everything's taped... sweet! Put the black plastic fitting back on the bottom, thread the screws through it, slide the housing back where it goes - tucking the wires neatly behind - and snug the screws down. Don't wind them too tight - it's just a plastic thread in a foam spoiler! Just snug.
23) Enjoy! Connect the power, rig the brake, step back and relish in your own coolness!
That's nine 8000mcd LEDs passing thru two diffusers. It is significantly brighter than stock; however what's more important is that it's more reliable and it LIGHTS UP FASTER, almost a half second faster, giving those crack-smokin drivers behind you more time to put down their coffee, stop checking themselves in the mirror, pause A Bug's Life and REACT to you braking in front of them. And that is a good thing, and my primary motivation for doing this. Plus, it looks cool. ;)
nissan.schuss.net |
Building a reliable LED third brakelight for under $30 - 
