S13 Fastback DIY LED 3rd Brakelight

Overview:

Increase visibility for drivers behind you.

Difficulty: ***

Time: 1-3 hours

Cost: $25-$45

Tools:

Glue Gun
Wire Stripper
8mm socket with extension
Flathead Screwdriver
Electrical Tape

Materials:

5mm 2v LED (enough to fill the light)
470k resistors
Cardboard

Procedure:

unlatch your hatch with your 8mm and flat head by your side. Remove your lining to expose the insides of the hatch. It’s a tight fit but you should be able to find one long stud on each side of your brake light. Take your 8mm and unbolt this. After you unbolt the brake light, take your flat head screw driver to pop off the outside ring around the brake light. It might be difficult to get out because lets face it; I highly doubt anyone has taken the light off before. After a little persuasion your brake light should now slide out from the bottom, unplug everything and bring it inside.

Have a clear table/workbench to work on. Take your flat head screwdriver to pop the tabs off the light cover. You should now have three pieces, your light cover, your outer ring and your brake light housing. Set those aside and grab your LEDs and resistors along with all your utensils. Take your piece of cardboard and make an outline for the back of your light cover, this is what’s going to hold your LEDs. After your done cutting it up to size, set it aside, now take your LED’s and resistors out. You can go with any color you want but I went with red. You can get a pack of 100 LED’s for roughly 20 bucks online (eBay) just make sure they are 5mm 2 volt LED’s, you also can get your 470K resistors online (ebay) for cheap.

Now take the amount of LEDs you want and grab the same amount of resistors. Plug in your soldering gun and let it heat up. Your now going to have to solder your resistor to the positive leg of your LED. The way to find out which leg is positive, take a 9 volt battery and tap the ends to + and – , make sure you do not hold it to the battery because you will blow the LED, but I do believe the shorter leg is the positive side. Once your done soldering the resistors to the LEDs , take your cardboard outline and poke holes where you want the LED’s to be. Push the LEDs through the desired holes. The way we are going to wire this set up is through parallel. Your going to want to connect all the negative legs together and your going to want to connect all the positive legs together.

Test fit and make sure everything is to your liking, then wrap all the connections in electrical tape, then take your glue gun and glue the LEDs into place. Now grab your brake light housing. You have two lights that illuminate your brake light. Take those out. You now have 2 unused connectors. Take the connector of choice and cut the wire. You now have a positive and negative wire. Connect your positive wire to the positive end of the LED end do the same to the negative side. Once you’ve done that you can now test it to make sure it works using a 9 volt battery. Take 2 pieces of wire, stick them into the plug that powers your brake light and touch the battery to the other ends of the wire, if all the LEDs light up, your good to go! If not, check all your connections to make sure everything is in order, fix where it needs be. If its all good, tape the cardboard template with the LED’s hooked up to the back of the brake light housing. Once it is taped, put your housing back together. To re-install, reverse the removal process.