I acquired a new pair of trailer LED tail lights for my trailer when a buddy cracked the HF tail light cases while backing up, but the circuit boards and LEDs themselves were OK.
I took the LED boards in my hands and tried to imagine them inside the rear lenses of the GM standard tail light housings - maybe using hot glue to position them in place.
Sidebar: the LEDS light up RED - why I'm not sure but it might be in case the lens gets busted really bad and falls off. Sounds about right to me anyway.
They should fit, I thought...... so I went for it!
It took a little thinking to remove just the right amount of existing plastic and lens support structure designed for the old bulb sockets and such.
I can say the results were very good. They are maybe 3 or 4 times brighter in tail light mode and maybe 5 times brighter in brake/flash mode.
For what it cost me (
no cash, but some labor, a stick or two of hot glue and some rubbing compound) - it was a good deal.
The Trailer/RV tail light 'kit' from HF goes on sale for under $30 for the full set and you will have another pair of amber LED clearance lights for some other project later on if you have to buy the setup.
On the outside you can't see what's inside or how bright it'll be but once they are on - even in daylight - they rock out.
BTW: I also polished the red lens portion with a fleece buffing wheel and some swirl remover liquid compound. That was just a little extra that added some bling to the lenses again.
I've also replaced the dashboard lamps with LEDs - green for lower glare, and put a blue LED in the High Beam Socket - since the GM OE lamp is too wimpy to see in daylight and you might be driving in high beam in the daylight without knowing it.
The dash board LEDs I bought are not dim-able - but they are good enough as they are - and green is soft on the eyes anyway.
One thing I don't understand in posts by some people here is that they need to change the flasher or add a resister to make the LEDs draw enough current to flash correctly.
My K5 has the trailer towing package and the flasher still works even if all the bulbs are removed from that circuit.
That's because GM designs the lights in the towing package to work anyway - no matter the load. As it is I have not had to add anything to coax the flasher to work on my K5.
On a buddy's Tahoe, I added a real bulb and it's original socket, and just wrapped it in pipe insulation and conveniently dropped it into the area behind the tail light where it could light up and flash all it wanted -- until we could get him a set of resisters - which does exactly the same thing as a bulb to load the circuit down a bit.
There are ways ----> and there are
ways! I'm in training to be a farmer.
I always wanted to be a cowboy with a horse, rescuing a damsel in distress and a Glock 10mm, but now I'm a farmer with some missing cows, a broken fence and a Glock 10mm.
It works for me.
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