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Thu Apr 04, 2013 12:11 am

I am trying to wire two led tail lights on each fender on my 74 super. The are the 39 ford teardrop style with a what wire, blk wire, and red wire. I am trying to figure out how to wire them so both work with parking lights and brake lights and only the outside one with blinkers. I have tried every combo and can only make one blink and one for brake lights.

Currently white to ground, blk led wire to gray Parkers on both LEDs, red led wire to blk blinker on one and red led wire to red brake wire. If I put brake and blinker wire together, both lights blink and then stay bright when I push on brake. Is it possible to wire the way I wanted?

Thu Apr 04, 2013 1:52 am

Do you have a wiring diagram for these LED light assemblies?
Or a link to the website that makes these?

It really sounds like you have a tail light assemble with two lighting elements. One is probably a dim lamp (parking light) and the other is a bright lamp (brakes and/or turn). From your description can we assume the black wire is the dim lamp and the red wire is the bright lamp, with the white wire being ground (I would actually think the black wire would be ground, but maybe not), is this correct?

The problem you have is that the stock tail lights had four separate lamps:
parking light (5W)
brake light (25W)
turn light (25W)
reverse lamp (25W)
Even if you delete the reverse light you have two bright and one dim light that need to be wired. Your tail light only has a single dim and a single bright light. If you wire the brakes and turn lights into the same filament the brake light will override the flashing turn light when the brakes and turn signals are applied at the same time. You would need to add a relay between the brake light wire and the brake light. This would be powered by the turn signal light. It would disconnect the brake circuit while the turn signal flashed.

Thu Apr 04, 2013 5:56 am

I had some cheap ones from JC Whitney and had problems. I bought a set that actually works with brakes and turn signals.

Look for the set that is 99 bucks and I believe they had a green wire that solved my problem.

http://www.shiny-hiney.com/rodcustom30.html

Thu Apr 04, 2013 8:12 am

Just this week, I solved this problem the old fashioned way on my homemade woods buggy - I added 2 more lights to the rear. The cheap LED lights I bought off eBay had the same black and red wires (white is ground). Black is running lights and red is brake OR turn - not both. Works great as brake lights as I really want someone to see extra bright lights in the rear when I am stopping in front of them.

I used the other pair as running lights (black wire) and turn signals (red wire).

Caution. If you are running LED's only front and rear, you may find that you need some more resistance in line to get them to come on. You can overcome this by either adding an old trailer light inline in the luggage compartment or buying and adding the special resistor for LED lights.

Thu Apr 04, 2013 10:06 am

I have heard of people using trailer wiring kits to make the cheaper lights work.

Also, Drs1023 is correct about the resistance. I bought the $10 relay from shiney-hiney, BUT I DID NOT NEED IT. I have regular bulbs up front. The relay replaces the standard relay for the turn signals.

Fri Apr 05, 2013 11:30 am

Give this page a read. The relay wiring diagram might also be helpful.

http://www.mg-tabc.org/library/turn_signal_relay/turnsignalrelay.htm

Fri Apr 05, 2013 2:17 pm

Thanks for the help. I will give it a try.

Thu Oct 23, 2014 7:48 pm

I know this post is a little stale, but I'm trying the same thing and I've come up with the exact same results. I think we need to wire two lights back there. Like the guy with the rail. How did yours come out?

Fri Oct 24, 2014 4:16 am

I did our buggy earlier this year with 41 Willys taillights. The simplest is getting a trailer converter from your FLAPS. They are not real expensive and pretty straightforward and typically in stock. BUT get the one for LEDs.

You may have issues with the flashers not working properly though - I swapped front and rears for LEDs. Various solutions for that. Load resisitors, LED flashers etc. I went through a couple different flashers until I found the right one.

This was my "journey" http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=594821&highlight=led