DIY - 3rd Brake (CHMSL) LED Mod

[chadhgraves]

Scroll down for pictures.Supplies 3/8" Drill BitDrillSoldering IronSolder 16 Gauge WireElectrical TapeSharpieKITT222 did a LED mod to his brake lights using some 4 chip superflux LED lights that have a built in resistor. The site to get them from is Oznium. http://www.oznium.com/prewired-superflux They're $3.29 a piece if you order less than 10 and $2.99 if you order more than 10. It gave me an idea to use them for my high mount brake light, so I bought 7 of the white/clear LEDs.1. Remove outer cover and unscrew the two bolts holding up the brake light. Then use a wedge to pop off the two clips holding it in. They fit snug so be careful. 2. Once you have your light free, unplug the wire to the bulb. The actual bulb fixture justs turns and pops out. Take it out as well. 3. I bought 7 of the LEDs, so I made a mark with a sharpie evenly spaced out on the back where I wanted to drill. I marked a center line all the way across the back the light casing and then mark a line in the middle and spaced evenly the points I wanted to drill moving towards the outer edges.4. Take your 3/8" drill bit and start drilling out the holes to place your LEDs in. I drilled from the back of the fixture. You might have to bore it out a little towards the edges, but not too much that the LEDs don't fit snug. Have one LED out to test the fit as you go.5. Place the LEDs in the holes with the wiring coming out the back. Push down so they are snug in the holes you drilled. Remove the wire shielding to expose about an inch of wire on each LED's positive and negative. 6. I left some extra wire in case I ran into a problem, but you could cut down on the excess wire a lot more than I did. I then taped the outer two LED wires together and the three inner LED wires together. Then I took all of the positive and negative wires and wrapped them together.7. I then took some 16 gauge wire and wrapped them together with the LED wires and put a bunch of solder on them. Then I heated up some electrical tape and wrapped the exposed wires. This left me with two clean wires to connected to my car's wires. 8. I then clipped the connector on the car's wires and exposed the wires. Green is positive(red) and white is negative(black). Double check before you wrap it up and finish. I then twisted them together and wrapped them up with electrical tape. Zip-tied the excess wires and stuffed them in the hole. 9. Push the fixture back up on the hatch and screw the bolts back in. Put the red lens back on and the outer cover. Check them out. I saw an improvement in brightness and noticeability with the LEDs. It wasn't drastic, but it was an improvement from the single bulb. Another idea is to buy the red LEDs and just take off the lens. I bet it would give a good result too.

[A Psycho Martyr]

Nice job manPretty clean install. Those superflux leds are great. plug-n-playI was thinking at first that you should have gone with red leds b/c sometimes white leds behind red plastic looks pink, but that's not the case here at all.

[A Psycho Martyr]

OOOH!!!i wonder if you could fit one of their Pihrana Bars in there....that'd be bright as heck

[tpollauf]

NICE !!!! Short, simple, clean & affordable I'm sure it is much brighter than the OEM incandescent bulb. Oh, also it was quicker to create which is a plus Keep on LED modding !!!

[chadhgraves]

Ya, it cost me about $30 to do it. It was easier for me to deal with LEDs that were prewired since I don't have a lot of experience dealing with LED modding. If I did it over again, I would trim out a lot of the excess wires, but I was able to conceal it fairly well when I installed it back on. I'm not sure on the lumen output compared to the incandescent bulb, but it is a cleaner type of light output that makes it appear brighter. I also like the look of it when the brake is engaged. Now that I've got my licence plate, dome, map, and third brake lights switched over to LEDs, I'm probably finished with LED modding. Any ideas on where else I could put an LED? Maybe some accent lights under the dash that shine down on the floorboard? Or figure a way to have an LED shine down from the side view mirrors when I unlock the car? What else have you done with LEDs on your cars tpollauf?

[A Psycho Martyr]

You could always get 10 of those superflux leds and drill out a spot for 5 in a horizontal line on each side view mirror....Led turn signals!

[KITT222]

This is awesome. I'm going to need to do this.Oddly enough, I was thinking the other day about converting the tail lights to 100% LED. It might be cool.

[tpollauf]

Quote, originally posted by chadhgraves » What else have you done with LEDs on your cars tpollauf? At the moment not much more than that 3rd brake light mod. I tend to go a bit OVERBOARD with my designs The "GT" LED mod on the 09-10 GT rocker panels will be an easy mod. It will fit where the fake rear vent is located. Nothing more than the two letters "GT" and will illuminate in park/running mode, as well as flash when that sides turn signal is active. A nice touch to the GT. Many more to come (outside mirrors, complete new tail light assemblies, etc ...)

[Wolfman213]

Quote, originally posted by KITT222 »Oddly enough, I was thinking the other day about converting the tail lights to 100% LED. It might be cool. This is something that was going to do at one point in time as well, but money, time, and other priorities has prevented me from getting it done. I bought a broken taillight from lovemyraffe so I could get the inner dimensions, but haven't been able to do the rest though :/ Like tpollauf, I was going to go overboard bc I was going to try and program a microprocessor to make a burst flash when the brake is applied the go solid and the turn way going to "run" from inside to outside.To the OP: Good job on the CHMSL! Much easier than doing a board and it still looks great!!

[tribalman]

Quote, originally posted by chadhgraves »y ideas on where else I could put an LED?Have you heard of underglow? I've been thinking of doing upper glow! Lights on the roof-rack cross bar!

[chadhgraves]

It might give a good effect. I've never seen it done before on the roof. Not sure you'd be able to see it that well if it's on top. If you do it, take some pictures.You might be careful about what color you choose to do that. I'm sure a cop could say you're impersonating an officer. I don't know what the laws are on roof mounted lights, so I have no idea. Probably wouldn't be a problem, but just something to look into.