Flush mounted tail lights aren't new. Jeepers have been replacing their stock tail lamps for flush mounted truck lights for years. The perferred lights have been 3" round trailer lights. These used a single bulb that will light up for Brakes, Turn Signals and Parking Lights. Now there are other options and I'll discuss a few of them with links offsite for those who want other options.
The simplist option would be to flush mount the stock lights. This can be done fairly easy. Check out;
J33P Feature: Flush mounting TJ tail lights.
Another semi-popular option is to use HMMWV tail lights. These lights are huge. I was thinking about going this route until I got a good look of the rear of the Jeep and the size of the tail lights. For those who want to cut huge holes check out this;
Adding Military Lighting to the Rear.
Now there are some new lights from Northridge which are low profile LED's. Technically, they aren't flush but they're pretty close. Only downside is that they cost $195! :shock: If you own a Rubicon and have money to throw away then check them out.
LiteDOTs™ LED Taillights
Then there are those who don't want to bother with changing out the the whole lights or don't want to cut into their Jeep. So for you there are LED bulbs that replace the standard bulbs.
For you lazy people.
Speaking of LED's you can now buy the standard 3" round lights in LED versions. They will usually have a 20 some small LED's or 5-6 larger LED's. I chose to be slightly different and go with the 2 1/4"x6 1/5" lights. These come in two different styles also. I went with the larger LED's. The lights have a 100,000 Hour Rated Life and are DOT Legal. This may be of some importance in case your area does Safety Inpections and they look at the lights carefully. Some stations won't pass your vehicle unless the lights have DOT on them. Legally they do not have to say DOT but to make things easier on you, it's better to have them then not.
So now that we have moved past the overview and legal mumbo-jumbo, lets get down to business.
Tools-------------------------------
Philips screwdriver
3/8" Socket and Ratchet
Cutting Tool
Grinder
Masking Tape
Dry Marker
Measuring Square
Level
Tape Measure
Soldering Iron
Heat Shrink Tubing
Where do we start? To remove the lights, the covers need to be removed. They are held in place by 4 screws. The cover may not fall off and require some help if they haven't been removed before. Holding the tail light housings are 3 3/8" bolts. With the bolts removed the lights should fall into your hands. They will still be wired to the rear harness. To unplug them, reach up under the rear quarter panel and unplug the connector. The driver side can be done without having to fish under the quarter panel. With a clean slate, we can now get to the fun part, the cutting.
Choose your weapon. Jig-Saw's, Saw-z-all, Cutting Wheel, Shears, or Nibblers will work with a varying degree of precision. I choose a
DREMEL Tool with a cutting wheel. Be sure to use reinforced cutting wheel and not the cutting discs. (I went through 5 of them on one hole, go with the reforced wheels.) The easiest way to cut a slot is to use a hole saw and drill two holes for the radius and then use a cutting wheel to connect the two. Start off by choosing a location.
Now there is a problem with using the 2 1/4"x6 1/2" lights rather then the 3" rounds. THe rear quarter panel has a fairly large hole where the lights plug is able to pass through. There are also the 3 holes that the bolts passed through. The distance between the lowest hole and the highest is greater then 2 1/4". This takes some planning so to cover all the holes. If you're going to add corner guards then it would be best to get them uncut. Otherwise, measure twice and tripple check it before cutting. With carefuly placement, the lights will cover most of the holes and only leave a slit exposed at the bottom. This is handy way to run antenna wires through the body.
Mask off the area where you want the lights to be. Since these lights use a gasket rather then a flange, the slot will need to be 1/2" larger so there will be 1/4" space around the lights. One way to go about this is to print out a
TEMPLATE. Then cut out the oval. Cut off the excess paper and reforce it with masking tape. Tape the template to the rear quarter panel. Once you've found a good location, use the dry marker to transfer the shape to the panel. Use the masking tape around the line to help give the paint an extra layer of protection.
NOW CUT!After you're wiped the tears away double check your handy work with the light. Make sure the gasket is correctly seated then insert the light. Hopefully, if everything was done right, there will be one bolt hole left at the top and the slot for the harness at the bottom. The gasket should cover 98.5% of the
HOLES.
The hole will need to be cleaned up so run a grinder over the edges and smooth out. With the masking tape still in place it would be a good idea to
PAINT the edges also. This will help keep rust at bay.
Now here comes the hard part, cutting the other hole. The best way to go about this is to take referance measurements of the first hole and transfer them over to the second. The measuring square and the level make this task a lot easier. Using the square against the quarter panel you should be able to measure the distance from the outside to the edge of the hole. Using the opening for the tail gate and measuring inwards should give you the inner edge. Then measure from the top of the quarter panel down and get the two other lines. Place the template inside and make your oval. Mask it all off and start cutting.
So, now you've got two large holes in the back of your Jeep and no lights. Lets start on the Dark Arts. You will need to cut the plug off the old lights if you ever want the tail lights to be removeable. This is a good idea. Now the lights are used for Brakes, Parking Lights and Turn Signals. They do not cover the Reverse Lights. (This will need to be addressed to be 100% Legal.) There are three wires on the
HARNESS.
If you're going to run multiple high-watt lights then you'll want to rig up a relay for the lights and use the reverse light wire on the harness as the trigger to turn on the lights. If you use a single utility light and keep be below 55w, you should be able to get away with out using a relay. This is the route I'll be taking route unless I locate some inexpensive low-profile lights to use.
Besure to give yourself enough wire to work with when cutting the plug from the harness. An inch should be plenty. First cut some heat shrink tubing and slip them over the indivisual wires on the lights. Slide them far enough back so they will not get any heat. You can add a third tube to hold all the wires together once they are done. Braid together the wire from the lights to the wire from the plug. The easiest way is to split the braid into two groups then twist the two groups till they intertwine. This will make sure the wires don't come apart once you start adding heat to them. Make sure your solder joints are not cold. They should look shiny and not dull. If they are dull, heat them up and try again. Once they are connected slip the heat shrink tubing over the joints and heat with a match. The tubing should seal the joint neatly. The LED's also have a ground wire. This can be a problem. There aren't that many surfaced to put a screw through without it sticking out someplace you don't want it to be. Since there was one threaded hole left from the original tail lights I used that. Instead of threading the bolt from the front I sent it in from the backside. Using the cut off wheel, I cut the bolt so it wouldn't stick into the gasket. This allows the LED to be grounded without having a screw head or wire exposed.
There is one other problem. Since LED lights are more efficent they have less resistance then the standard bulb. Because of this the lights will not flash with the turn signals are used. To get around this the Flasher will either need to be replaced or modified. Flashers with variable loads are cheap ($10) so I ended up buying a new one. Here is a
LIST of several types of Flashers that should do the trick. YJ's use a Round 2 Terminal Flasher while TJ's use a Square 3 or 4 Terminal setup. So, I used a Tridon EL12.
With the new flasher in place everything works.
How much of a difference does the LED's make? A huge one. The LED's are a lot brighter. There will be no problems of anyone not seeing them if they are looking at the back of your Jeep. Take a look;
TAIL LIGHTSBRAKE LIGHTS
