Hey, I have wanted to add LED tail light for a long time. Last spring I tried some 7443 LED cluster bulbs and they were terrible. Half of the bulbs I got did not even work and the ones that did were weak and did not fill the lense. I decided to do it right. I got a set of 4 truck LED replacement lights and 2 OEM lenses. After several months of spending a couple of hours here and there I opened the lenses and installed the truck LEDs. Now I love my new tails, but I do not want the original bulbs in them. When I removed them the brake light warning light in the gage cluster came on. I altered the bulbs so that the parking light comes on when I press the brake, but the warning light still comes on. I am going to try it with un-altered bulbs in the sockets and hope that the warning light stays off, but this defeates half the purpose of having the LEDs, saving energy. I know that this is a small ammount, but it was a bonus to the conversion. Plus I do not want the hot bulb near the back of my new LEDs.

Does anyone have a suggestion for tricking the blown tail bulb sensor?

 

Not feeling it...I don't think the looks of it justify what you had to to to get it like that.

 

It looks very amateur and sloppy. I'd go back to regular tails before I'd let them look like that. Nothing against you personally, props for trying, but not a good result.

 

It looks better in person. Does anyone have a suggestion for tricking the brake light sensor?

 

Right now I have the same problem as you. But it doesn't bother me much. Was thinking of taking out bulb in the dash.

For the bulbs you should of kept looking or waited. Look at the ones I have. They light up perfectly.

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136333

 

www.superbrightleds.com

 

This might help. Going to try it myself.

 

well i've been studying physics all day so i can't give a difinitive answer at the momment buut, my head hurts . what you have to do is figure out the load on the stock bulbs then figure out the load on the leds and then wire a resistor. when you choose a resistor the higher the wattage the better it will be able to disperse heat... i.e. the colder it will be.

 

I have to agree, the end result looks pretty amatuer vs. Type S's solution.

 

Looks good in the photos and i bet it looks great in person. I finally painted the OEM bulbs black so that they dont show. It was easier than messing with the resistors. It is not perfect, but it makes me happy.

I did think about bypassing the tail lights and having a few bulbs hanging in the trunk to pull the load, but this did not seem too professional

 

haha interesting idea... but i guess that works

 

The brake warning light probably has a load sensing circuit that's trying to tell you that the brake light is out. (Similar to how turn signals hyperblink). Since LEDs use much less current - LEDs use milliwatts vs. incandescent use watts - you need to install the resistor so the circuit thinks a bulb is there. The 6-8 ohm resistors will be fine. Just make sure the resistors are rated for 25 watts - eg: don't buy 1/4 watts, 1 watts, 10 watts, etc. (They look like the size of fingers rather than the size of worms)

Also, keep it away from any wires cuz they get hot just like a bulb. They should be ok touching the housing or metal though.

 

i didn bother fixing the warning light.
it doesn't really bother u if u dun pay attention.

 

UA5-TL

what you done to your back light , seeem very bright can you show me how?

thank

 

i got strips of LEDs and pushed it thru the original holes of thehousing
alligned up then put some butt connectors on the wires of the LED wiring and hooked it up to the bulb fixture...how i keep the lights in place is the tention of the bulb fixture and the housing

 

That looks awesome! any other info on these "LED strips?"

Nice tease of a 3 series as well!

 

UA5-TL
Where did you get the led strips from?
Do you have the website for?

 

here can you please explain how you did your led taillights step by step please and can u tell me all the matirals i need and were to get very appricated thanks

 

I also did this about year an half ago. The problem is our Taillights has (shade square box look) line in it so only way to get a good solid LED look is with bigger 20mm LED or buff out or wet sand the line out an that is pain in @ss even with small hand held tool.

Here a Good Pic of OntarioTL LED Taillights

 

^^^jealous

 

were to get the 20mm leds from were? please let me know

 

I'm curious to know OntarioTL got the LED's in there. Are each of those vertical lines of light a strip of LED's? Or are they just a mere glare from one LED?

And all these pictures at night shows that the light coming off is yellowish, is that just how the camera takes in the red light? Or is the light actually red?

Really nice look either way, I'm just very curious.