High level brake light fix

Hi I managed to take my high level brake light apart replace LEDs with different ones and refit. Seal with silicone sealant to keep water out

Working fine now. Time will tell.

Sorted

Taximan2011 said:

Sorted

Click to expand...

It's fallen over

Where's the write up / how too ?

Datatek said:

It's fallen over

Click to expand...

Maybe it's the up to date take on cow tipping

I think it's more likely that the car is upright and Taximan has fallen over. He's struggling with this L322 but he hasn't finished or sold the P38 yet.

Sorry didn't stop and take pics as I went.

Basically the job is to take the non working brake light from out of rear spoiler.
Powerful uk have good youtube videos covering that so I don't need to explain in too much detail. Basically covering the rear wiper motor is a trim panel that you need to hold top and bottom and pull off. It is held on with some strong spring clips. Try and pull it straight so as not to break plastic lugs off panel.
You will see 3 bolts these hold the rear spoiler on. you need to remove these. Disconnect the little clip plug on brake light wiring you should see this on the right hand side about 4 inches to the right of your rear wiper motor unit. Carefully close the tailgate and then carefully pull rear spoiler towards the back of the car. It is located on 2 keyhole slots for ease of assembly and disassembly. Next carefully lift the spoiler up a little enough to be able to release the grommet from the talgate that the brake wiring passes through. You can now remove spoiler complete.
Put spoiler upside down on something soft a blanket or something and you will see 4 small torx screws undo all four and then flip the spoiler over. Where there is a gap along the back edge of brake light place hands there and slide brake light forward as it is located on some plastic L shape lugs. The brake light then lifts out. Pull wiring back through.

Once the brake light is removed from the rear spoiler you need to carefully using a knife or a razor blade proceed to split the red cover lense from the backing part of brake light assembly with a slight CAREFUL leverage as you go.
Once the light Is seperated from the red cover you will see two clear plastic lense covers that cover the existing LEDs. With a small screwdriver carefully prise them out of the light unit. They should come out with the old LEDs attached to them mounted On Long strips of circuit board.

As the current old glass LEDs were not working I removed the clear lense strips so I could get to the LEDs and then with a pair of side cutters cropped all of the LEDs from the board and all other components leaving a board strip with lots of cut wire legs sticking up. A slight tap with a hammer to flatten them all down.

I was lucky to have a strip of white LEDs which come on a strip of electrical ribbon so they are very flexible with the circuitry all built in. These can be bought from eBay less than £10 mine luckily enough already had the two wires soldered ready to go.
I found the nearest cut line to cut it down to length be careful as they run in banks and if you cut in the wrong place the end few LEDs wont work but its clearly marked

The new LED strips come in a length with 3M tape on The back of them just peel off and stick over old led circuit board. I did this as the circuit board is stiff and gives some structure to it and also the clear lense covers clip back onto it.

Then take clear lense strip covers and clip back onto circuit board. I used a few spots of super glue to make sure they stayed together.

Next feed your wires through exit hole of light unit

Press the new LEDs with lense cover back into place in light unit
Then connect to battery to test all is ok

Then I used some clear silicon sealant to waterproof the hole where the wires exit the light and put a thin bead of silicon on the edges of the two parts. The brake light unit and the red covering reflector.

Once dry and your happy with it insert into rear spoiler.
The only issue is the grommet that is on the old brake light that stops water getting into boot will need to come off and due to the plug on the end you need to cut the wires to get it off but it's an easy refix after with a few crimps on the new wiring.

Refit spoiler and then using crimps to reconnect to feed wiring.
Refit trim panel carefully


Job done. Relatively easy and inexpensive.

Providing I've made it watertight I'm hoping to never change it.

Ok I had the new led parts sitting around but if I'd gone on eBay I reckon £10 - £15

Hope this helps.

Hippo there's the How too without pics

The P38 is nearly ready to sell just needs radio back from clarion an exhaust box and the back bumper colour coded.

Word of warning...... If your going to cut wires and remove existing push connector note that the wires from brake light are either black and red or brown abc blue. Whereas the feed wires from the car are brown and blue/black. The blue/black is the switched live not the brown wire.