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940 Idea for adding extra LED taillights to my 940

T

TacoSalad

New member
Joined
Oct 6, 2014
I saw out walking today and saw a 940 wagon exactly like mine and while I was admiring it stopped at a light I noticed that its brake lights were significantly dimmer than the cars next to it. This isn't surprising, with 20 year of corrosion and old dirty lenses it makes some amount of sense.
In a brainstorming effort about how to not get rear ended I came up with the odd idea of just adding a second pair of brake lights. In the world of fabricating truck service bodies lights are easily added by dropping in some pre made light fixtures like this:
white-box-truck-reverse-lights-red-brake-marker-bar-led.jpg


They are commonly available and meet all normal DOT specifications as long as they are installed properly. Also they are all LED which means they will turn on faster and unlike LED retrofits have properly designed lenses. I have a permanently installed roof rack I fabricated and could easily add a pair of combination tail/brake lights just above the hatch hinges. Alternatively, I could add one in the middle as a 3rd brake light and remove the existing one. Either way would be easier than trying to clean every connection between the taillights and the battery, and I haven't been able to find any LED drop in bulbs from a reputable source. Plus I would really need to replace or at least buff out my taillight lenses.
Is this a crazy idea? As far as I can tell it is legal where I live in Oregon (lots of trucks have more than 3 brake lights and the state law only states a minimum, not maximum). Besides looking goofy, are there any downsides I'm overlooking?
 
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Its probably fine. Tow trucks usually have an extra set of stop/turns on the top of the headache rack.

Only down side is possibly looking like a safety dork.
 
On a 745 I wired in the fog lights (rear of course) so they light up too when braking. Added a few diodes to keep fog light functionality separated from brake lights.
I'm looking at good led bulbs for this as well.
 
^^^ This is a good idea as well as being integrated into the factory tail lights. Another idea would be to replace the third brake light with an LED strip across the the top inside of the glass, like modern cars. Not only would it be brighter it is also more directly in the line of sight of drivers behind you.

Those 2 options aside, tacking on lights to the back of your car will look awful. It's not a box truck, it's a european estate car. Keep it classy :)

I've seen more than one thread about doing this to 240's http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=187878

On a side note, I work in the auto aftermarket / restyling industry and in my experience most **** LED tail and signal lamp replacement bulbs (and they're all **** really) are not as bright as the incandescents that came in the car. I know that sounds counter intuitive, but try them in the daylight (especially down here in FL) and they wash right out or have really narrow viewing angles. They are also super unreliable with high doa and failure rates. Tail lamp assemblies that were designed for and come with LED's are a different story. I'm specifically addressing replacement bulbs.

I won't do them anymore- the cars always come back with issues and god forbid they contribute to an accident. Just something I wanted you to be aware of.
 
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I've been planning on doing one of these brake bars under the edge of the tailgate, i just haven't.
They keep getting cheaper, too
LTG-LED49-1.jpg
 
TacoSalad said:
The more that I think about it replacing the 3rd brake light with a LED module like this http://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Lights/Optronics/STL56RB.html probably makes the most sense. I like the idea of using the fog light spots as brake lights but unless I can find a high quality LED bulb I'd rather stick with a real DOT approved fixture.
Click to expand...

I had no idea that it had been done before, rather I never even thought of it. I rewired my fog lights for added brake lights on my 940. Although, I never gave a thought about the power feeding back to the fog light switch. I just re-did the fixture to accept dual filament bulbs instead of the single filament that is used by the original fog lights. The diodes seem like it would have been easier.
 
JW240 said:
On a 745 I wired in the fog lights (rear of course) so they light up too when braking. Added a few diodes to keep fog light functionality separated from brake lights.
I'm looking at good led bulbs for this as well.
Click to expand...

What type of diodes did you use? And did you simply patch a line from bottom brake light to top fog light?

Been thinking about doing this for a while....
 
I've been thinking of someday taking my taillights apart and making custom LED panels to go inside - perhaps 5x5 LEDs for each light socket, flush up against the plastic housing with maybe a 2x5 array on the sides.
 
Steve Z posted a link to a thread by Classic240. He showed how to add in the diodes:

http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=187878

Classic240 just used simple electrical components from "The Shack". I am not sure where you can go to get the stuff now, it is soo much more difficult with them mostly gone.That way allows you to rewire without much modification to the taillight assembly. I didn't think about his method, I just took some parts from the tail light assembly off of a 740 that was heading to the crusher and reworked the 940's assembly to accept 1157 bulbs at the top socket as well. I still have fog lights and now I have double brake lights.
 
lifeofgold said:
Steve Z posted a link to a thread by Classic240. He showed how to add in the diodes:

http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=187878

Classic240 just used simple electrical components from "The Shack". I am not sure where you can go to get the stuff now, it is soo much more difficult with them mostly gone.That way allows you to rewire without much modification to the taillight assembly. I didn't think about his method, I just took some parts from the tail light assembly off of a 740 that was heading to the crusher and reworked the 940's assembly to accept 1157 bulbs at the top socket as well. I still have fog lights and now I have double brake lights.
Click to expand...

Did the same thing. Yanked some harnessing out of my old 765 to double up on the lights. Now they are up high where they can be seen better.
 
Cool Article^^^^^ now I feel old. I've been running these cars with the mod since before the write up and never had a problem.
You can get the diodes on line easy.
 
JW240 said:
On a 745 I wired in the fog lights (rear of course) so they light up too when braking. Added a few diodes to keep fog light functionality separated from brake lights.
I'm looking at good led bulbs for this as well.
Click to expand...

The new led bulbs with lenses in front of them are really, REALLY bright. My daylights are almost as retina piercing as my HID's now, almost considering a set of new gen H4's too, since they just made a quality leap.
 
stiligFox said:
What type of diodes did you use? And did you simply patch a line from bottom brake light to top fog light?

Been thinking about doing this for a while....
Click to expand...

Oops, forgot this thread.

I took some diodes from an old PC switched mode power supply. Almost anything will work, as long as they take about 2 ampere. Took some wire end crimps to attach them to the wire plus some good shrink wrap. Flying leads yes.

The diode will cause a 0.7v voltage drop so it will heat up a little and make the lights they feed a tad less bright. Use a more expensive Skottky diode if you want less drop, tho it seems overkill here.

Easier: http://www.polevolt.co.uk/acatalog/info_10ADIODE.html
Diode with 6,35mm spade attached. Didnt know those existed.

Oh and on a related note. Just got my H4 Chinabay Led bulbs. Super bright. Seem to work OK in the 240 Ecode housing. Maybe need a tad of adjustment to eliminate the slight glare it has. Very easy install, no ballasts to mount, plug and play, 30$ shipped from China, 25 Watt per side, claimed 4000 Lumen, 6000K (white). Each bulb has 12 Lumiled chips.

There will be better led lights in the future but for this price I decided to give it a try. When upgrading in the future these can go into a Moped or something :-P

FezMonki said:
The new led bulbs with lenses in front of them are really, REALLY bright. My daylights are almost as retina piercing as my HID's now, almost considering a set of new gen H4's too, since they just made a quality leap.
Click to expand...

Yes. My experience as well. Also got some taillights etc in LED.
 
Steve Zissou said:
Now that's neat, innit. Couldn't find those on Ebay. You could fab up a little harness so it just plugs in and not cut any wires.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Using the Diodes from old PC power supplies works but this is neater.

Just got these in:

IMG_20161231_161505_zpssw7tcb0r.jpg


BAY15D bulbs.

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/2PCS...QxL0Dm&detailNewVersion=&categoryId=200002080

Quite a bit brighter than the stock incandescent 5/21w bulbs. Brake light much brighter (not as bad/blinding as modern cars though haha), normal driving light a bit less bright than the old brake light was. Suspect people wont mistakenly think I?m braking because I have 3rd brake light.
Drop in with no mods. More light to the side too, car is more noticeable that way too. Now lets hope they last a long time too!


H4:

IMG_20161224_181027_zpssqrdko49.jpg
 
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