Rear orange turn signals.

[apextrans]

Very cool mod. What type of lights did you use for reverse?

Scott

 

[Agnem]

I'm not sure about the saving money deal. Cars had single color dual filiment bulbs for a real long time, and our trucks were just the last of the breed. Remember the T-birds, with the multitudenous red lights that flashed in sequence? Now that was cool! My ranger has the seperate colors, as do the new trucks now and seems like most vehicles made today do. I would think if they did it to save money, they would have gotten rid of clearance lights sooner. I think it was the europeans that caused them to break out the colors more than anything. That or some kind of safety law changes.

 

[WPineF]

And the wiring changes were???

Dave

 

[F350camper]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to ya on this. The last couple of weeks have been outta control for me at work. Anyhow, here are the wiring changes I made to support this mod.


Step 1. Disconnect reverse light hot wires and connect them to new aux lights.
On each side, the reverse light socket is fed by a black wire, and a pink/black wire. I left the black wire intact (ground) and clipped the pink wire on both sides (hot). I made sure I left a good 2 – 3 inches on the socket side to allow for splicing later. Then I extended each pink wire (from the harness) to one of the aux reverse lights. Finally I spliced each ground wire of the new reverse lights together and then to ground. The reverse lights I used are super cheapy ones from autozone. It didn’t seem like they would draw any more power than the stock bulbs, so I didn’t wire in a relay. Seems to be working fine so far. I chose these because they were small enough to tuck under the bumper, and up against both sides of the trailer hitch. They seem pretty protected there. I have them aimed down, and out. Gives me a good canopy of light when reversing.

Step 2. Reuse old reverse light sockets as new yellow/orange turn signals.
For this part of the hack, I used my favorite auto electrical hacking accessory. Some of those electrical quick splicers. (as pictured Here )
With two 30 ft rolls of 16ga in hand I walked 22 feet to the front of the truck. Under the hood I pulled out the driver side turn signal socket so I would have enough slack to work with. Using one of my quick splicers, I tapped one of my wire rolls to the light-green / white wire, and reinstalled the socket. I repeated the same procedure on the passenger side, only this time I hooked my other wire roll to the white / light-blue wire. Then I just pulled both wire rolls under the truck and laced them all the way to the rear, following the stock wiring harness all the way back. This gave me a “brake light free” turn signal connection at the rear of the truck. Now I just had to connect my newly run wires to the correct pink/black pigtail that was left dangling from the reverse socket in step one. I used two different colors for my front to back run so I could easily match left to left, and right to right. And finally, I installed orange bulbs where my clear reverse bulbs used to be, and put the socket back into its original hole.

Step 3. Wire up non-flashing brake lights.
Using one of my quick splicers again, and another 30ft roll of 16ga, I tapped into the light green wire coming of the brake pedal switch. (right above the brake pedal inside cab) I ran this to the rear of the cab, and out through the bottom where I could get to the stock harness again and followed it all the way to the rear of the truck. Next, I clipped the Orange/light-blue wire on the passenger side, and the light-green/orange wire on the driver side. I sealed off the lose ends on the harness side with heat shrink and electrical tape. And finally I spliced the pigtails from the brake light sockets (left and right) to my new brake-light wire.

Step 4. (for another post) I taped into my newly run brake light wire just before it left the cab, and ran a leg up to the exterior bed dome light. This will allow me to easily hook up a dome light with an intergraded 3rd brake light from a newer truck.

Whew! That was a mouthful!

 

[soulpatchfr]

thanks, Rob for such a detailed explanation... this mod goes high on the to do list, for sure.

my only question(s) are with step 3:
does that mean both filaments of the 'brake light' bulbs are now burning when you brake? if so, brighter is better i guess.
was that the reason to run new wires? after much thought, that is the only reason i can come up with.

to eliminate the flashing reds, i don't see why you bothered to run new wires... couldn't you have just clipped the orange (blinker) wires from the harness & just tapped those pigtails from the socket to the brake pedal activated wires right there at the socket to achieve the same result?
isn't there already a pedal activated lead right there?

then, why not use the existing orange blinker wires in the OE harness for the connection to the pink pigtails on the socket (old reverse / new blinkers)?

the only benefit of running new wires i can come up with (at 3 am anyway) would be that your brake lights would burn both the filaments in that bulb, as opposed to only the 'pre mod' one filament.


EDITED after much thought created more confusion

 

[F350camper]

He he he! Ya that’s a good question for 3am Frank!

Well, your brake light socket with a dual filament bulb performs 3 functions. Parking light (comes on with head lights), Brake light, and turn signal. The parking light filament only performs the parking light function. But the brake light filament is also the turn signal filament. So if you don’t run new wires, you would have red and orange turn signals, and red and orange brake lights.

I did think through some ideas with diodes and capacitors to avoid running new wires, but that made my head hurt to bad and I decided it would be best to just run new ones.

Now that I have it set up this way, I’m actually thinking of a set of these taillights. I think that would really make the orange shine. But I cant decide if they look too ricer or not.

 

[F350camper]

Adding pics of aux reverse lights:

 

[F350camper]

another

 

[dieseldummy]

I've been driving around looking at cars tail lights lately and notice alot of amber turn signals in the rear. I just know that some lights can be changed and some can't, example: some truckers change their cab marker lights from amber to "watermellon" and that is a no no. I think you came up with a great and different mod here. Those reverse lights look light they add quite a bit of light when it is needed most.

 

[towcat]

Originally posted by dieseldummy
I've been driving around looking at cars tail lights lately and notice alot of amber turn signals in the rear. I just know that some lights can be changed and some can't, example: some truckers change their cab marker lights from amber to "watermellon" and that is a no no. I think you came up with a great and different mod here. Those reverse lights look light they add quite a bit of light when it is needed most.

you're right overall in the OTR stuff. but pre-1963 trucks could get away with quite a few lighting irregularites. One '60 pete I play with every now and then, the owner found original green overhead lenses. The color is unmistakeable at a distance that its his truck.

 

[soulpatchfr]

:***: ?!? Rob, you mean you have rear running lights on your truck??

DOH! forgot all about that critical 3rd purpose. i guess i was trying to find an easy way out

i like the evilBay taillights, or at least the idea. i think the ones in the LMC catalog look less 'Euro' though & suggest you look for either on eBay.
haven't searched there for taillights, so maybe there are other styles. but i have found that i can get all new headlights, turn signal, corner marker AND chrome bezels for about $200 from various vendors... thinking about going to clear lenses & orange bulbs - i need to look into LED's too.