By: Ryan Hicks (Skill)
*Caution* Doing this project requires you to mess with wire and you could be shocked if not handled properly. It also requires the use of a solder gun/iron and you can severely burn your self if not also handled properly. I do not hold any responsibility for injuries you obtain during this project or to anything you may damage, that is of your property or anyone else?s.
Materials needed : 2 Feet of Primary 16 Gauge or smaller wire, Soldering Iron/Gun, Rosin Core Solder, Tape Measure, Drill, Drill Bit of 3/16?s and/or 13/64?s, Clear Silicone, Dremel or saw, and optional, but recommended is liquid tape. * All these materials may and can be purchased at local Wal-Mart stores, with the exception of the LED?s and resistors ( Order from http://www.oznium.com/led ) and some will not have the Primary Wire ( Radio Shack is where I got mine ).
STEP 1:
Getting your self a clear lens is not required, but will give you that extra look of cleanness and make the light look a heck of a lot better. Now I sell clear lenses for the 95-99 year neons at 15-shipped just pm me or e-mail me and state your interested in it, ryhicks@comcast.net.
Next step is planning on how you want to do this project. What I mean by this is how you want the LED?s to be placed, or even to be viewed in the brake light. I choose to put them in line right in the middle of my brake light. Now some people may want to see the glow without the LED?s being shown. Doing it that could mean placing the LED?s at the top and the bottom depending on your preference.
Step 2:
Getting your stock red brake light off the housing. Now this may be tricky or even seem like a hell of a job, but if you take your time it?s nothing compared to that at all. I do not have pictures of this because I took mine off a while ago before I wrote this how to up. So how I did mine was basically get me a hand saw take the whole housing out of the car, secure it down in a clamp or some sort of vice grip ( BE CAREFULL NOT TO break the housing the clamp ), and start hacking away at it. You can also use a Dremel tool to do this, which I didn?t have at the time. Don?t? saw to far down as u want to keep the face there to place the clear lens on it. NOW I would recommend buying yourself another brake light housing to do this, which is what I did. I went to the junkyard and got me another one, and I worked off of that one while I stored the stock housing in my barn and used it on car till I could replace it.
STEP 3:
Buying your LED?s is easy enough to do. Decide on how many you want in the brake light. I decided to go with 10 across my light and that sucker is bright and lights up very nicely. However many you get I suggest getting them from http://www.oznium.com/led. When you order them u will need resistors for each one also, so when u get the color checked enter your quantity and select resistors too. Check out your item and the shipping for all products is $2.95 unless you need them quicker.
Now when you get your LED?s in the mail take them out and what not. Set them out and unpack the resistors. Go get your solder gun/iron heated up and ready to solder. Get some Resin Core Solder if you don?t have any already. Now when it comes to LED?s there is a side called the anode ( the Positive side ) and a side called the cathode ( the Negative side ). Wrap the resistor around the POSITIVE SIDE. How are you going to tell which side is positive you say? Well look at the LED and whatever side has a longer lead on it which is the lil? metal things coming out of the bottom is usually the positive side. Another way to tell is if u look inside the led and u can see a big flat looking thing in there ( bigger of the two ) then that is the negative side. Solder the resistors on there and your done for now.
STEP 4:
Go get your housing and mark off your holes, where you want the led?s placed. Take your drill and usually a drill bit of 3/16 fits the LED really snug and may take some effort getting it in there. After trying to push them in there, I drilled the hole a lil? bigger at 13/64?s. Then get you some clear silicone and put silicone all over the back of the LED?s and let them dry to secure them good. Now you can also super glue them if you want, but I put silicone in there in case I needed to take them out later and change the LED.
STEP 5:
Now you need some wire doesn?t matter the colors unless you care so you can tell what is negative and positive, I used black as neg. and blue as pos. Also anything from 16 gauge, which is what I used, and lower gauge will work nicely. Do not go above 16 gauge because that is just way to big. Now measure out a reasonable amount for both wires. I used I think it was two feet or a foot and half. I started at one end at the LED?s then ran the rest of the wire along the brake housing, leaving extra wire for movement of the wire to hook into the trunk wires. Now what I did was line the wire up with the LED?s leads on the back and marked with a red marker where I needed to splice the wire where the LED leads lined up on the wires. Then I spliced the wires at each point that I marked on the wire.
STEP 6:
Once you have the wires spliced start soldering them to the LED?s leads. I bent the leads out so u can wrap them around the spots spliced on the wire and then soldered them to the wire. I also angled them away from each other or I guess u could say separated the wires, see the picture to see what I mean. Now go get u a small battery like a 9 volt or 12 volt and hook up the end of the wires to the battery and test her out. If all LED?s work then u did a great job!
Now you may notice I have an LED missing that?s because I blew it cause I forgot to hook up one resistor on the LED, goes to show u how important those resistors are, but the LED is now replaced.
STEP 7:
Now that you are done doing everything basically needed for the brake light. Now comes the part of wiring it into the trunk, so that when you actually hit your brakes the LED?s will light up with it. Open your trunk and look at the brake light wire. You will and should see two wires running in the bulb configuration. The White/Brown stripped wire is Positive and the Black is your ground. Now what I did was just cut off that bulb holder so it exposed the two wires and then I spliced them and soldered my brake light to it. If you do not wish to cut off the bulb holder then simply take the bulb out and solder the wires into the bulb holder corresponding to the positive and negative wires. This is a lil? bit tricky and harder, but to all his own. Now screw in the brake light and you?re done.
FINISHED PRODUCT!!
CREDITS also go to: NeonStyl(from the speed), The Oznium Forums, Oznium for LED?s, and neonrider(from the speed).
I will also make these for anyone for 32-shipped i have the price breakdown layed out if interested, contact me.
My next project ... converting the tail lights and side markers to all LED's!
