Need advise on LED taillights

DirtyMo'XJ

Active Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2015
Location
Mooresville, NC
I have the Ares rear quarter armor and have the Maxxima stop/turn/reverse combo taillights. I have the reverse run straight off the stock wiring and that works great but stock wires do nothing for stop/turn/running lights.
I'm using my trailer light wiring for stop and turn but it combines them on one bulb so I have no running lights.
I know I need some sort of convertor but I'd like to KNOW what I need. I was trying to find time to get by somewhere that installs dump beds or like Carolina Hitch but couldn't get out of work in time.
If anyone has had some experience with this and could give me some advise on what I need or where I could pick it up I would appreciate it.
 
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Make sure you get a LED-compatible flasher unit. And yes, you already have all the wiring you need.

I just found a picture of the back of the LED lights. You have a ground for the reverse, and another ground for the other functions, both grounds need to connect to the chassis or to the factory ground wire if there is one in the factory taillight harness.. The other wiring connects directly to the factory wiring you already have. I can't remember if there is a factory ground wire, some Jeeps like TJ ground the light through the mounting screws instead of having a discrete ground wire.

Yep, just looked at XJ schematics and there is a factory ground wire.

If I'm looking at the right schematics:

Grounds are black
Reverse lights are brown/light green
Brake light is white/tan
Left Parking light is brown/yellow
Right parking light is dark green/yellow
Left Turn signal is dark green/red
Right turn signal is brown/red

I'm assuming you're chopping off the factory light connector and splicing the LED light wiring into that...
 
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Running lights power off of a wire separate in the trailer harness. That's how I did mine. Left the factory light harness with bulbs in it so I didn't have to change the flasher ;-) the tail light boxes I built use a standard pop in trailer light.. but I went LED to never have to change bulbs. Night time tailgaters have reduced occurrences as a bonus.
 
I have cut the the light off of the running light and hooked it straight up but it didn't light up. I'm not sure if it's a voltage thing. I was hesitant to cut all the lights because it does need an inspection soon. I get all functions except running on the trailer lights. It has ground cause turn/stop work fine I was thinking turn/run were on the same wire on trailer wires.
I ask about the convertion box because it's shown in kits and videos, but if it's three separate lights you don't need one. I just seen where alot of folks have gotten the wrong ones.
I didn't have anytime to mess with it today I'll get it pulled out and take a few pics tomorrow.
 
I don't know what you're doing wrong, and I don't know why they're not working. The reverse lights are two wire hookup, I can't fathom why they wouldn't work with wiring that functioned before.

Do you have a multimeter that you can use to check things? You're not going to get very far in troubleshooting without one.
 
I do have reverse hooked straight up to stock lights and they do work.
 
The thing is I'm trying to turn 3 functions (stop/turn/run). Into 2 function bright and dim. If I combine run and turn on dim wire they will just stay on running lights at night. If I combine stop and turn on bright wire they will not blink when I apply the brakes.
 
I blew the fuse on turn signal that why I wasn't getting anything on it.
 
So the TAIL on the LED light is the running/parking light, as you've already figured out. I didn't think about the discrete stop and turn bulbs; many cars (and the TJ) have a combined stop and turn bulb, and the multifunction switch toggles between them when the turn signal is on. On those cars, the brake light isn't on when the turn signal is on, etc.

So the trailer turn signal lights do exactly what you need, or you can add your own relay to each side (one left and one right relay) to add the same functionality. The brake wire goes to one side of the relay coil, and the turn signal to the other. If either of those signals are on, the relay switches power to the trailer light. If neither signal is on, or if both signals are on, the relay will switch off. So it's a simple way of making some simple logic to toggle the brake light with the turn signal. I'm interpreting the relay logic from the schematics.

Thinking about it, that would also invert the trailer turn signal when the brake and turn signal are on at the same time; having both signals on at the same time would turn the relay off when the turn signal goes high. That would mean your front and rear turn signals would be inverted from each other if I'm thinking about it correctly.

I'm sure I can think of a better way to do that without having the front/rear signals inverted, you'd have to use your own relays though.
 
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Fabrik8 said:
So the trailer turn signal lights do exactly what you need, or you can add your own relay to each side (one left and one right relay) to add the same functionality. The brake wire goes to one side of the relay coil, and the turn signal to the other. If either of those signals are on, the relay switches power to the trailer light. If neither signal is on, or if both signals are on, the relay will switch off. So it's a simple way of making some simple logic to toggle the brake light with the turn signal. I'm interpreting the relay logic from the schematics.

Thinking about it, that would also invert the trailer turn signal when the brake and turn signal are on at the same time; having both signals on at the same time would turn the relay off when the turn signal goes high. That would mean your front and rear turn signals would be inverted from each other if I'm thinking about it correctly.
Click to expand...


Yes, and this is exactly how the stock xj trailer lights are wired. Side benefit is that bad trailer wiring won't kill the turn signal switch like it can on those wired through the multifunction switch :)
 
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