Legality vs looks for lighting

[Alex]

I'm trying to figure out how to wire up the rear lighting.

I think i want the outside lights to be brake/turn

I'm uncertain about the inside lights. I won't be using the reverse light for reverse, so when my lighting is on (unlikely, not exactly an after-dark car, lol) I can either have just the outer red half lit up, or I can have the red and white halves lit up.

The former looks kind of weird ot me (half a light lit up?), the later is illegal (who cares) but looks better. Hmm?

 

[Damian]

Since the car is going to get pulled over every two seconds I would go for the legal route. There has to be some sort of circuit board that you could hook up that would give you the option of "switching" the setup with the turn of a switch.

 

[Damian]

BTW I love how your car is comming out.

 

[Alex]

BTW I love how your car is comming out.

Are you stalking my photobucket? Lol - somehow I'm using like 40% of my bandwidth each month and I don't know where it's coming from, lol.

 

[Alex]

Since the car is going to get pulled over every two seconds I would go for the legal route. There has to be some sort of circuit board that you could hook up that would give you the option of "switching" the setup with the turn of a switch.

Too much effort, haha. Legality has never bothered me :O

To me the problem is it just looks ... odd .... having only half a light on in that orientation. if you re-orient the light 90* (i.e., the way Dodge has it setup) then it looks normal to me (visually).

choices choices. I'm curious what other guys are doing.

 

[Alex]

Whelp, the taillight is kicking my ass at the moment, lol.

It's very simple to wire - each bulb has 3 prongs. I got the wiring schematic from Dodge when I bought the weatherpacks for the bulbs. Ground, turn signal, park lamp (for example)

So I tried wiring up the outsider light (brake/turn). If I follow dodge's schematic, I end up getting all sorts of funny things happening. For example, brake light on, but my turn signal won't come on. My ISIS electrical unit is flashing (indicating turn signal is working) but the bulb will not flash. Or I reverse the brake/turn light, and all of a sudden when I use the turn light my isis unit is saying the brake light is also on (??bulb is backfeeding to the unit???). I ended up figuring out a combination that works properly for the brake/turn, but the inside light is stumping me.

No matter how I wire the inside light, both the red and white portions come on. My choices are either moderaly bright red and white light, or REALLY bright red and white light (you phsyically can't look at it it's too painful).

The later makes no sense to me - the light housing is split in half (red/white). The bulb is not split in half. It has 2 rows of lighting. So when I apply power to it, either the lower row lights up, or the upper row. Meaning regardless of how I wire it, both red and white lights come on. Huh?

Anybody here wired up the rear lights properly? This one's got me stumped. The bulbs came with the light housings, but the weatherpacks i bought from dodge fit in the bulbs perfectly, so the bulbs are more-than-likely the correct ones. The housing is correct. The wiring is correct. So what am I missing?

 

[Dimi Terleckyj]

Hi Alex

The bulb with 2 elements is for tailights.
The low element is for tailight and the bright one is for brake light.

The lens that is divided should have a metal or plastic divider down the middle and fittings for 2 individual globes that light up either one side or the other if it is meant for dual operation.

The usual problem with the dual element globes is that if you wire the earth to the wrong terminal both elements light up because they both share the earth connection and back feed into each other.

Dimi

 

[Alex]

The later (backfeeding) would explain the outer bulb.

However it unfortunately doesn't explain the inner one, which also uses one of those dual fillament bulbs. The inner lens in the housing is red/white and separated at the front of the lens. The bulb itself is a single dual element one (one row in front, one in back). I can't see how the white part won't be lit up because the entire bulb comes on, regardless of how it's wired. The only difference is low vs high intensity.

The weird thing though is the bulbs look the same, but on a dakota site I found they should be different

Rear Turn Signal Light Bulb Size: 3057LL
Tail Light Bulb Size: 3057LL
Stop Light Bulb Size: 3057LL
Back Up Light Bulb Size: 3157LL

As there are only 2 bulb sockets, this would almost imply the outer lens does turn, brake, and tail lights, which doesn't make any sense because there's only 3 connections so trying to run 3 things+ground would definately cause backfeeding. Hmmm.

 

[Alex]

Found my "problem" - the way I was wiring my ISIS system for self-cancelling turn signals was incorrect for these type of bulbs.

Long story short, with this type of lighting stetup, if you want the self-cancelling turn signals (off after 7 signals / off after 7 seconds off the brake pedal) you need to use an inline trailor brake light converter. Will pick one up and see.

 

[Alex]

Ooooooooo

Turn out (in summary) you can't use the self-cancelling turn signals on the isis (which I wanted to do .... if i'd kept the power steering column intead of trading for the racing column it wouldn't have been an issue, so I doubt it will effect anybody else, but figured I'd leave a note if anybody reads this) and have brake/turn on the same bulb intensity (e.g., high intensity = brake and turn on the same bulb)

I tried a power trailer adapter (brake/turn in, and only 1 line out) which worked in terms of preventing backfeeding, but because of the way the isis works the trailer adapter kept getting confused and left my brake lights on all the time.

Oh well, ho hum, I ended up doing

brake - outside; high intensity
running light when dark - outside; low intensity
turn - inside high intensity.

I replaced the inside with an orange bulb, so instead of a bright red/white light flashing at you, it's kinda orange/whitish-ishishishish. Looks kind of cool actually. Legal - probably not since you want to cry if you stare directly at it, but oh well, it works

 

[Cam]

Alex, the EZ wirign system is set up to run the brake lights off the turn on the 1st wire. then park is low intensity on the 2nd wire. Why don't you just swap the ez wiring system for that pesky isis system?! You can mail it to dallas if you wanna get rid of the isis! JK/.

 

[Alex]

I'm sure you're offering a fair trade there Cam, but I have to pass at the moment. One quirk (which is only because of the light and steering setup I have) vs a rock solid electrical system that works flawlessly........I think i can live with it