CShepp

Okay so, I wanted to try something different that not a lot of other people had done. I scoured the internet looking for people who had LED rear turn signals, and other than the ridonculously expensive zLED ones you can order, I found nothing. This DIY took me the majority of the day, but a lot of that time was spent waiting for stuff to dry.

Materials:
Socket Wrench
10mm socket
Screwdriver
Aluminum tape
Silicone
Popsicle stick x2
VHT Nightshade
4 Amber LED strips
Electrical tape
Clamps
3M Tape

um.... I think that's it? It was all pretty basic stuff anyway.

So first things first, you have to take off your bumper. I didn't bother walking you through that, as there are already some great DIYs on here that do that.

Okay, so once you have your bumper off your car, you can go ahead and remove the rear turn signal lenses from the bumper. There's just 2 philip's head screws that hold them in, so I didn't bother taking a picture of it. It's pretty straight forward.


Okay, so now you need to do some baking.


Put your lights in the oven 250˚ for 8 minutes to melt the silicone.


Don't worry, it isn't hot enough to damage anything. So once you have it out, grab a large screwdriver and pry the lens off.


Okay, so next thing you have to do is create a 'ledge' for your aluminum tape to stick to. I used a popsicle stick. They're easy to cut and glue into place, and if you don't have any sitting around, you now get to reward yourself with a popsicle! So once you finish your popsicle and have the stick trimmed to size, just glue it right in there like you see in the picture.


So next step is the aluminum tape. Making it all perfect and smooth is next to impossible, but luckily I wanted to tint my lenses for this anyway, to hide any weird looking work inside the lens.


Now we need to tint the lenses. Pretty straight forward task. Follow the instructions on the can and you'll be golden.


Finally we get to the actual LEDs. I used a few pieces of 3M tape which stuck to the lens, and siliconed along the underside of the strip.



Once they're in there, I put some more silicone around the edge to really ensure they don't move.


Now I re-sealed the housing with some silicone and clamped it all together. The lens looks pink-ish in the picture for some reason. It doesn't in real life but for some reason my phone decided it should make the picture pink. IDFK.


Once that's all dry, it's time to wire the LEDs in. The LED strips I used had a silver wire and a copper wire. I spliced the silver one onto the black wire for the blinker and the copper one to the green wire. I don't know if it works either way, but it worked for me like that so I didn't bother trying. Now you'll have to keep the stock bulb still wired in, as the LEDs draw very little power and the car thinks the bulb is dead and blinks super fast. But the bulb is covered by the aluminum tape so you'll never see it anyway. Once you have it wire up, plut it in and test it out.

Now that everything's working, go ahead and screw the housings back into the bumper. Put everything back together the same way you took it apart and enjoy!



I also threw some LED reverse lights in there too to top it off!
And yes, I know I lost a tail light.

Nightman350z

any updates? Any more pics

MicVelo

Don't expect an answer.... OP hasn't been on in four years. To the day almost.

tampa_joey

thanks Mic!
i was sooo tempted to go and make my Popsicle and aluminum foil lights when i read your comment

Nightman350z

do it!