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How-To: Sedan Taillight mod

19K views 54 replies 28 participants last post by  Tjr33150 
#1 ·
Tools: Dremel and Safety Glasses
Time: 10 minutes
Price: Do you have a dremel? Yes? It's free

Posted pics earlier... and someone mentioned a how-to. It's easy enough, but I was bored so here it is.
Quite simply... if you hate the cheap circular taillights, you might wanna give this a try. Now... I'm not getting rid of the crappy circles... I just wanted them to be seen less; as in... instead of being the brake lights, make them the turn signals. The end result is similar to the European taillights in that the top triangle portion is the brake light, but it's all red, and as mentioned... circles for turn signals. It's also worth mentioning the brakelights and turn signal brightness are in no way affected, so no worries there.

Just running lights

1--
To start with, we need the taillights off obviously.
Easy enough... lefty loosy-righty tighty [;)]

and it just slides right out


2--
Now, just take the bulbs out. These are held by tongue-groove as you can see below

Then just lightly pry the clamps open and slide the bolb holder from the socket. Try not to break the clamps, but if you do, between the rubber grommet and the tight fit... you'll still be fine; best is to not break them.... they do snap easily, trust me.

And about now you'll see our mission:

Making those tabs match up

As you can see (sorry for the blurryness) those tabs don't match up. So what we need to do... is dremel those tabs right off the bulb holders

First, you might want to slide the grommet off to make sure you don't hack away at that
Yes... even this gets a picture


3--
These are the already cut bulb holders. The red tabs have been painted back in to show stock locations. Sorry, but a writeup didn't occur to me during the dremeling process. But, it's pretty simple. All you really need to do, is hold the tab bulb holder up to the black socket (make sure the slider is also matching up with the groove. As in... you're not trying to put it in upside down. Once again... trust me.)



So grab your dremel, line them up, and whatever tab is in the way... dremel right off the holder. You will see you don't need to dremel off all the tabs, it's pretty simple.

Careful not to go too deep as I did here. No damage done, but I'd imagine you won't be too happy when you start shredding wires, as I would imagine I was close to doing.

No biggie, I only did it once, and i was going really fast through this mod, so I was a little careless. So no worries really if you take your time, you won't be shredding anything.

4--
Now, all you need to do, is test fit. See if they slide right in, make sure it slides in far enough for the clamps to grab. If they do, slide the grommet back on (a pen or flathead screwdriver helps) and then just push 'em in.





5--
Now you just need to put it all back together. Seeing as the wires weren't meant to go to these places... it's a little tight. I suggest starting from the top, you won't get any resistance.

Bolt it back up, and you're done.

Results:

running lights

brakes

brakes and turns (I could never catch the turns at the right time, sorry. I promise the light looks JUST like the brake lights did [;)])

running lights

brakes

brakes and turns (once again, could never catch 'em)


So there ya have it, all done. Good luck
 
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#8 ·
Yea, I didn't have any way to cut away at the grooves in the bulb fittings to make them fit into the holes that I wanted... I have TYC tail lights, not altezza's by the way and I have recently nite shaded my stock tail lights and I wanted to do this similar mod to my stock lights... I have a picture of my rear turn signals on, but it's not very good...

TYC Taillights

TYC Taillights /w Turns

Nite Shaded Tails


Cheers!
 
#24 ·
I like the way my brake lights look with the little circles and all. But I have seen some Focuses where the brake lights are stock and everything but when they turn the blinker on say to the right the right stop light flashes instead of that little blinker on the top. Does anybody know how to make there blinkers in the stop lights?
 
#39 ·
My 2001 ZTS doesn't seem to be set up like everyone else's either. For mine, the top lights have NO BULB IN THEM AT ALL, nor even a socket for one....they're just REFLECTORS on the inside.....my circle lights house the dual-filiminted bulbs (allowing them to shine brighter or lower) and are my running lights, my turn signals, AND my brake lights, all in one. How boring is that?!
 
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