Dark Angel

I know there has been a few questions asked about this recently. i just converted my '01 Z to the early style all red taillights. It actually a pretty easy mod to do. For the buckets, all you have to do is grind a little on the notches that hold the lamp base into the housing on the turn signal and brake bulbs. the corner and reverse are exactly the same. Then to convert from the separate brake and turn to a single like the older style is just about as easy. The '97+ cars have the same turn signal/hazard units as the pre '97 cars. The basics of it is connect a wire between the brake switch and the spare wire on the harness going to the turn signal switch. Cut the brake line going into the tail light harness in the trunk. Pull the guts out of the turn signal lamp base, add a third wire and press the guts back in. Connect this new wire to the tail light curcuit and connect the brake light on either side to the turn signal. Now you will have 2 bulbs acting as both brake and turn signal.
If you want more detailed info, just get back with me.

ratio411

Thanks!
I was wondering about running the turns a brakes together and making it work as stock, but I was concerned there would be nothing in our later model cars to prevent the power from feeding back through the turn signal wiring and lighting up the front lights.
Have you checked to see if your front signals light up with the brakes now?

I was figuring on putting the bulb from the amber part into the outside corners and using those for turn signals. After running a wire to them so they function as plain tail lights too.
Then the brake light could go in the center section without modding.
The light that was previously in the outside corner could be run to the inside ends without modding and function only as tail light.
Then the reverse would need no modding of course.
This would give a full tail light, a center brake light, and corner turn signals. They wouldn't operate enough to melt the small corners either.
Dave

Dark Angel

Actually the turn signal stalk is what makes it all happen and they are identical between our cars and the earlier cars. I checked and there is no bleed over. There is an extra wire coming out of our stalk that is not connected , that would be connected on the eariler cars.
You can't physically swap the bulbs from the outside to inside corners. The outside corner is a small single filement bulb, where as the inside is a large dual filement bulb. I modded the hole for the outside bulb and mounted a large dual filement bulb, so that all 3 locations are Brake/turn and tail lights. I bought another lamp base from Autozone. You could always rewire the outside to act as a Turn/brake but no tail and then have all 3 working as turn/brake and the middle and inside as tail. This would just involve redoing the wiring a bit.
My light mods page Here are a couple pics. I will try and get some pics of the way it looks light.

ratio411

How did you sand your light housings smooth without damaging them?
I am wondering if that would work on my clear corners...
Dave

Ernster500

Very cool!

Now you just need to add the Sequential Turn Signal Light Kit !!!

E

Dark Angel

Dave, I pretty much did them like you would paint. I used 150 grit wet sandpaper to get trid of the ridges, 400 to smooth it out, then 600 grit to reduce those scratches and then 1000 grit to smooth it out more, then compound to pretty much clear it up and then swirl and scratch to polish them up. I have addeda couple more pics of the lights on the car at night with the lights on if you want to check them out on that page now. I have a couple pics of the connector under the dash that is spliced, if you want me to e-mail them to you and a pic of the front of the car , with the glare of the brakes at the rear.
E, That's what I am planning on soing next. I am going to get the ATS lighting modules.

Dark Angel

I am in the process of doing an installation page for this. Hopefully tomorrow I can get some pictures done. Will keep you updated.

Team Untouchable

Why would you want to convert to the all red tail lights? Just for something new or for some other reason?
I have seen all the red tinted black, and the backup lights left white. Looked pretty sweet, but I have all blackouts so my car is very black.

Ernster500

Because they look better than the ones with the little yellow inserted piece?

Or is that just me...

Dark Angel

Yep, cause they look better. They look like they are supposed to be there. Look at them. The clear lense fits nicely in the corner of the hatch, the new ones look disjointed. A color here another one there. Nothing flows with the lines of the car. You can hook up all the bulbs and instead of a single brake light or turn signal, you can have 2 or 3 and you can do the sequential turn signal mod!
I thought I would go for something different with the tiniting. Rather then completely blacking them out where they are pretty much useless, even at night, I would subdue them. They still work well, but they aren't quite as bright and in your face.

ratio411

I like the amber lights on any car but black ones.
I have a black Z with a silver secondary/red highlight color scheme going. To me having all that red and silver on the black makes the amber stick out and look very out of place on the car. Disrupts the flow really bad. The red tail lights are just a natural for the color scheme/flow I am trying to achive for my car.
It's that simple for me.
Dave

pu12en12g

It definately looks better than the 97+ ones...

good job !

solid95z

Hey guys, I have a '95 z28 that I am trying to find '97+ tail lights for. I need the lights and the harness that goes with them. If you did the ealry style tail light mod and would like to get rid of your 97+ lights with the harness, let me know.

If you want to do the mod and are interested in a trade, let me know.

Thanks,

Scott

Dark Angel

Mine were dimpled, that why I finally made the effort to do this conversion. You should be able to use your stock harness. Don't know if the connector in the trunk is different. You will need to cut the brake wire going into the turn signal stalk and then either tap into the high level brake light or run another wire up from the pedal to run your brake lights seperate from the turn signal. So you are better off just using your stock harness and modify.

Pandamonkey

I like the amber turn signals on my car much better than the all red.........
I always thought that if I had a 93-96 Zed I would do the opposite conversion.........
Ah well, to each their own.