LED replacement how-to

Miguel5671

Registered User
im not sure if i am supposed to post this here or not but i will do so i guess it can be moved later if anyone cares to do it

this is how it kinda looks working

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6NzcY6iR1w

some people asked me for a how to so here it is hope it helps somehow

LED Repair

Tools: ( ill post pics of everything i used)

1)some speaker wire to give more lenght to the
connections
anything i say smaller than 18 gauge (pic #1)

2)an electrical tester < i believe that is what its
called or a multimeter (pic #2)


3)your choice of LED strips
i used 2 pairs of Alpena 5053 (pic #4 and pic #16)
$30each pair i already had all these
and another set of alpena that has the option to be
used as signal,hazard, stop pretty much all the
functions
had 5 different cables to wire up $40 (Pic #3)
unlike the 5053s that were simple 2 wire ( ground
and 12v)
i was literally dumb not to search on ebay first
because i found a bulk 20ft LED sorta deal for $10
bucks theres plenty you can search up although i am
unsure of how well those LEDs from ebay light up


4)pliers and wire cutters/wire strippers or a knife
you can use connectors / heat shrink tubing or
electrical tape just depends how neat you want your
wireing to be (pics #5-7)

5)i used Black ducktape and silver/aluminum duck
tape to seal them (Pic #8)
i used a piece of the shiny silvery one on the
middle of the black to be the reflecting seal on the
gaps from the grinder (pic #9-10)
you can also use plastic to kind of weld it back
together with plastic i went the easy way and just
used black duck tape on the back worked fine and you
cant see it anyways

6) OPTIONAL
double sided tape
^ only if you have old strips like me
new ones usually have the 3m tape already on them

7) a grinder to cut the back side open (pic #11)

8) a drill and 3/8" bit size its up to you thats
what i had on the drill at the time , to tap a small
hole to get the wires out didnt get a pic of this
one

9)some glasses or googles to protect your eyes while
your cutting open the back of the tail lights

10) ratch and 10mm socket (pic #12)

11)holding pliers ? pic 15 just because i was lazy
to hold the strips myself while they got glued right
this is probably needless

12) variety of connectors
Pic (# 29 ) i remembered this after wards sorry :p
 
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INSTALLATION

1) Remove tail lights
there is 5 small nuts that have to come off on each
side
u can use 10mm or if the top falls off it will be a
9mm socket (PIC #13) shows the nuts that need to be
removed

2)place ur tail light on a rag or something that
wont scratch it and get the grinder going
i Cut a a 4" x 10" square (pictures #14-15 show
about the size i made)
u can cut smaller or bigger thats just what i did
right above the stock LED strip and the area inside
the screws
i didnt want to deal with bad alignment later on

3) once you have the back open clean the inside of
the tail light with a rag nothing fancy
and shake it upside down to get all the particles
from the grinding out of there

4) place your LED strips DONT glue them yet
take it to ur battery and test them first
see if you like how it lights up or if you must
place the strips in a different way
i glued them right on top of the stock LED strip you
can remove the stock strip if you wish I didnt do it
but you can give it a try if you want i was afraid
to break my tail light and not have a spare once you
figure out that you like the way you placed your
strips and how the lights looks u can set a small
mark also try to run the cables under the strip
because if not once your lights turn on you will be
able to see the cables hanging in there keep them to
the walls of the tail panel either at the very top
or very bottom thats what i ran mine through and you
are ready to glue (PIC #17-20)

5) drill a small hole near the Reverse light on the
back side of course
so you can bring the wires out through there once
you have figure out how your wires will be routed
and how ur strips will be placed u can continue
location is shown on (pic # 21) by the small red
arrows sorry i couldnt get a pic of where i did mine

6) remove the red plastic strip thats on the 3m tape
from the LEDs and glue your strips
make sure u put it straight no lumps or curves going
on u can use a long screw driver to push the sides and
get them to glue the right way unless you have
skinny long hands
(pic #22-24)

7)once glued test again
make sure everything looks the way you want it
before you wire or close anything
grab all your LED wires and route them through the
reverse light hole on the trunk then place your tail
light and put the nuts back to hold it in place
you can route the wires first just in case you make
a mistake ur Strips arent glued yet and you can
correct it

8) if you are happy with how it looks then you can
now Seal the back part of the Tail panels
i used like i said Black duck tape and
aluminum/silver duck tape
cut a small 1cm by how ever long the black will be
lets say 4" strip of the aluminum and tape it to the
gluey side of the black tape 2-2.5" by 4" right in
the middle
why ? to fill in that gap the grinder left and since
the gluey side of the tape wont be a reflecting
material at all that is why i used this tape
i would guess you can also use small strips of shiny
aluminum foil (pic 9-10)
repeat till you sealed all four sides of the
rectangle you cut off

9) Place your tail lights back in place route all ur
wireing through the reverse light hole (pic 30)

10) grab the wires and route them through the inside
of the trunk towards the bottom unless you would
like to have wires hanging everywhere your choice...
(pic 31-32)

11) use your tester to check what cable is the stops
signals and hazards on the corner Stops i just used
those cables to have them work at the same time i
did as close to the light as possible about 2" away
because if you spline the cables together farther
your tail panel will light before your stop light
and it will be out of timing on the signals (pic 33)
right side
there is 3 cables a black which is your ground
BROWN is the Tail lights
Orange with blue is stops signals hazards
this one is the one that flashes current on and off
if you get LED strips that are able to do all
functions i would say they will have 5 wires maybe
more then you can just wire each to its designated thing
ill use what i had for example :

5wires
red-stops
yellow-signals
white-taillights
black-ground
black/white line-Continuous 12v


a) the RED wire i wired to the 3rd brake light cable
to work the stops

b)the signals YELLOW wire it to the Orange/Blue
stripe wire

c)the WHITE for the tail panels connect it with the
Brown wire

d)BLACK on Black for ground

e)now the Black/white stripe that mine had needed to
be constant 12v
so i just grabbed the constant from my amp on the
speaker system
you can run a single wire from the battery if you
dont have one already


Please check the color diagram ur LED strips will

have
colors may vary on brands and different strips
just to be sure

11B)
if you have strips that are simple and only have a
ground and voltage wire
usually black and red...
depending on how many strips you will use
example 2 strips
one of the strips will be wired to the Brown
and one will be wired to the orange blue
both need to be grounded
why because if you wire them both together to the
same cables they wont work as they should and you
will be missing funtions either stops or tail panels
etc

u can also use more strips
2 and 2 for each
or 2 and 1 etc

i suggest adding a good amount of extra cable to
each wire to have enough lenght to hide them
u can use black electrical tape or wire looms to
cover them and zip ties to keep them together
that is pretty much it

few things i used that i forgot to mention
heat gun for the shrink tubes one my connections but
you dont really need this ^^
electrical tape i didnt have a pic
zip ties i do have a (pic 35) of course use black or
which ever color u want

and you should be left with something looking like

this pic # 34 LEft side is done Right side still
needed to be finished
but just to show how the before and after kinda
looks
 
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Thanks for this detailed write up with photos. This is one of the things that I have been thinking about for some time. I will be doing a set for mine over the winter.
 
Thanks for this detailed write up with photos. This is one of the things that I have been thinking about for some time. I will be doing a set for mine over the winter.

No problem and ur welcome ,
awesome its quite easy let me know if u come across any troubles
 
I went to the local pick and pull today and scored 2 complete sets of tail lights and brake lights for late models Birds for $50. This will allow me to experement a little. Will gather up some LEDs, and get busy aftr Christmas.

Thanks....
 
I went to the local pick and pull today and scored 2 complete sets of tail lights and brake lights for late models Birds for $50. This will allow me to experement a little. Will gather up some LEDs, and get busy aftr Christmas.

Thanks....

Awesome shows us a pic or video once your done if possible

btw man I love how that hood looks on your car its awesome :D
 
OK, I did mine and am very happy with it. My factory leds are working fine, so I left them funtion as tail lights, and added 2 high output strips in each light to provife stop and turn signals.

tail%20brake3.jpg
 
Don't forget to check with your state laws on how many Lumens/candlepower tail lights can have. Several overseas companies are required to change out their lights before entering the US due to the 200/300 lumen difference.
 
Don't forget to check with your state laws on how many Lumens/candlepower tail lights can have. Several overseas companies are required to change out their lights before entering the US due to the 200/300 lumen difference.



Really ?? i had no idea
i doubt ill get in trouble considering mine are smoked
its the reason i replaced because cops said the tail panels wouldnt work
and well they werent supposed to be stops or signals but they didnt know that
so i got stopped everytime
and did this hopefully they dont say anything i doubt it they will more likely think thats how they came in from factory just like they thought the tail panels were supposed to be signals and stops but thanks for the heads up ill check before getting in trouble
 
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