LED tailgate lights.

[-stew-]

I hope to knock this out over the long weekend. I kinda have a hard on for the factory clearance lights that came on some tailgates. I also think these trucks have sh!tty and dim tail lights. I recently saw a 3/4 inch LED marker light that was really bright on a truck at work. I thought two of them would be easy to put in the bumper, one on each side (rear facing) and wire them into the brake lights to have some added (bright) brake and turn signal lights. Then I thought five of them laid out factory style would be cool. But then I'd lose the added/brighter turns/brake lights. Some digging on the interwebs and I found these 3/4 inch dual intensity LED's. http://www.ebay.com/itm/111177688722?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

So I'm gonna mount them across the tailgate in this type fashion...



With all five acting as maker lights that will come on with the parking lights, far left and right acting as brake and turn signal. and the three centers coming on as a running and brake lights.


Not quite sure why I'm bragging about this, but this is cool **** to me! I'm a huge fan of letting the people behind me know what I'm doing.

 

[rebelgregory]

I'd be interested to see how it turns out.

 

[4xcrazy]

The taillights are in fact somewhat dim, but I can tell you from my own experience, that if you remove the housings, clean them up real well and paint the inside of the housing with a shiny silver, or even that fake chrome paint, it does brighten them up a ton, even with stock bulbs.

The old 2wd burb I had, the previous owner had painted the inside of the housings black, to give the lenses a somewhat blacked out look. Unfortunately, it also seriously dimmed the output of the lights, until I repainted them.

Also for back up lights, some auto parts stores, maybe somewhere online as well, I bought mine at Autozone, they sell a 50 watt bulb that fits in the socket for the reverse lights. Being they are not that big of lighting fixtures in the housing, it really does add to the back up light intensity. I put them in my 4wd burb and get comments from people now and then about how bright they are.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Also for back up lights, some auto parts stores, maybe somewhere online as well, I bought mine at Autozone, they sell a 50 watt bulb that fits in the socket for the reverse lights. Being they are not that big of lighting fixtures in the housing, it really does add to the back up light intensity. I put them in my 4wd burb and get comments from people now and then about how bright they are.

O'Reilly's sells them. If you call or look them up on their website go by the bulb size. They don't list them under the square body trucks.

 

[-stew-]

I don't have an issue with backup lights...

 

[AbramJ]

Why not put LEDs in the tail lights?

 

[-stew-]

Why not put LEDs in the tail lights?

I don't like them.