LED Tail Light How-To

[BlazinLow_inORE]

LED Tail Lights


http://buildyourride.com/rollpan/led0.jpg

I bought these LED's on ebay from a guy named Jer (jmcneil18@attbi.com). They came with a third brake light and a module to allow the LEDs to function as running and brake lights.


http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledbucket.jpghttp://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledbucketcut.jpghttp://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledbucketside.jpg

In order to utilize them, some light buckets had to be fabricated. Starting with a rectangular piece of tubing that was alittle longer than the LED strips, one of the short sides was cut off(left picture). This left a U shaped piece of metal that will be a basis for the buckets(middle picture). Then part of the side that was cut off was cut to size and welded to the open sides of the U shaped piece(right picture). This formed the bucket that can be welded into the rollpan.

http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledbuicklenses.jpghttp://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledbuick.jpg

The LEDs did not come with lenses. Old Buick Electra tail lights were used to make my lenses. There are a few reasons I decided to use Buick lenses. 1: they are long and flat. 2: they had a reflector built into the lens. In my state at least you need to have red reflectors on the rear of your vehicle(reflector is the middle two rectangles). The lens was cut out with an angle grinder.

http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledlens.jpg

A bandsaw was used to trim the big buick lenses down to size. Using a fence on the band saw lets you make the cut nice and consistant. The strips were made as long as possible, and the width was cut so it would fit inside the bucket nicely. Then the lenses were cut to length.

http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledcloseup.jpg In the very first picture on this page you can see that the LEDs have little mounting ears on each side. Using the spacing of these ears, I drilled holes in the lens. Through each hole I put a bolt, and 3 nuts on the back side. The 3 nuts kept the lens far enough away from the LEDs. The the LED strip was installed, then 2 more nuts, then a wing nut.

[BlazinLow_inORE]

http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/led02.jpg

Only the wing nuts will come off later so the strip can be installed, then from the back of the bucket the wing nut will be put back on to hold the strip in the bucket. You can see here the LED strip installed in the bucket and the wing nuts underneath.

http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/led01.jpg

Top view; you can see the reflector reflecting from the flash of my camera.


http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledbucketin.jpg

Next the hole for the LED bucket needs to be cut out. I think this part is pretty self explainitory.


http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledbuckbrace.jpg

I tried to keep the hole just big enough so the light bucket fit in nicely. Then from behind a piece of wood was used to keep the bucket parrellel with the top of the rollpan( flate part on the left) while welding. Once the bucket was welded in the top was ground down to be flush with the rollpan.


http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledinpan.jpg

Here's a picture of the lens in the pan.

http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledrollpan1.jpg

I primered the pan front and back first, then ground down the sides to weld it on the truck. That's still the tailgate that I got rearended with.

http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/airsusdone2.jpg

Here are those bad boy LEDs in action. They sure are bright. In the picture the running lights are on. The brake lights are way brighter.

http://www.buildyourride.com/98s10/ledtruckrear.jpg Here is the truck all done, new tailgate, new paint.

[BlazinLow_inORE]

courtesy of... http://www.buildyourride.com/ledtaillights.html