Will Feather

Well after being pulled over 2 times and almost having my car towed I'm looking for ideas. The officers say my tailights are too dim. Also my running lights are the bottom outsides only, are the bottom middles supposed to light up as well? When the brake is depressed the inside top and bottom illuminates.

I searched but could not find a thread I remember seeing about upgrading to LED bulbs.

Any input would be appreciated as I am told I will be towed if they see me again. And it's my daily driver!

Spidey944

Have you pulled the two ground points off under the rear hatch carpet and cleaned them?? That may be causing your dim lights.

LeftLaneGuy

bannana-

LED bulbs will not make them brighter...
Your best option, is to take 'em apart and clean them inside and out.
Clean all the contacts, and possibly replace the pin connectors.
The light-bays are very specific.
upper: (outside to inside) turn, back-up, and top-half of brake.
lower: run, fog(option) and bottom-half of brake.

I now run LED conversions in my tails (not bulbs) but previously, I had installed another socket into the fog light, and jumped off the run light. Woked very nicely, once everything was clean.

On the subject of LED conversion: It's a royal PITA. And EXPENSIVE. I have approx $400 in my taillights, and ultimately, it wasn't really worth it. Looks cool, and works better, but not any more light than stock. LED's are not designed to be projected through fluted lenses. Too much dispersion...

alordofchaos

I read that the material on the reflectors often wears away. You may want to put something shiney on it (e.g., glue aluminum foil on the reflector that surrounds the bulb, silver metal tape, etc)

flashgordon

As already mentioned, it sounds like a bad ground. I would clean the grounds in the rear hatch area as well as the sockets for the bulbs.

Will Feather

Yes I will deffinatly look into cleaning the grounds, thanks guys!

Lizard944

I think there used to be kits where you could add extra bulbs to several empty squares on the rear tail light assembly. IIRC, was sold by Performance Products ?

ELLSSUU

Really just need a socket from an old tailight and about 18 inches of wire. Easy to do.

black944 turbo

Not realy mentioned yet, but your lights sound like they are in the correct position, outside is running middle nothing and inside is brakes.

joes

I got LED bulbs at autozone, they are made for the standard socket maybe not much of an upgrade but a little brighter and a lot more reliable. Do the jump over to the next socket with and it'll be plenty bright.

boston951

Like Spidey says - Pull and clean the ground connections as a starting point.

Toran

Will any socket do?
I completely replaced the rear passenger lens as it was cracked. The new lens doesn't have the socket for the bottom middle light.

T.I.A

ELLSSUU

Hmm, don't truly know. The extra sockets I used were from the brake light portion of the tail lights. Let this Hurricane pass and I'll take a picture of the setup.

lilredpo

I added an additional bulb to each side. Nothing more than a socket/bulb, some wire and a bayonet conector to jumper off the existing circuit board.

I've seen the same as a kit offered on E-bay.

Will Feather

I do have an extra set of tailights and noticed the dead space in the middle which is why I asked if I was missing it. This will be the project for the weekend so I'll let you guys know.