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Sometimes being stupid allows one to find smart solutions.
A couple of days ago, I went to replace the backup bulbs in my rig with LED since the stock ones were always too dim. Amazingly, one of the tail lights had the original bulb in there from nearly 30 years ago . It still worked, but was rusted into the socket with no hope of recovery for the whole assembly. I went online and found an aftermarket tail light assembly set for $40 which looks to be better than OEM.
One of the common complaints of these lights from reviews was that the running light and back up lights are wired wrong, with the back up light shining (yellow wire) in the red housing and the running light (white wire) through the clear one. Many reviews said they fixed it with repinning the wiring or cutting and splicing the wires to swap them.
My first thought was, hey, that's pretty smart knowing how to rewire something cheap to make it work right. But, if you look at the back of the unit, which has plugs that pull out of the back to replace bulbs, the plugs are all identical, with only the wiring being different for the center bulb. I'm usually not the sharpest butter knife in the sink, but I just swapped the plugs from one socket to the other. The white wire plug swapped with the yellow -- took all of 10 seconds on each light. No cutting or splicing or anything. LOL
Yeah, I know cutting and swapping wires is easy, but I was amazed how many reviewers thought of a solution in how to rewire it without just swapping the bulb plugs from one socket to the other.
Anyway, they seem decently built for the price. Anyone looking to get new tail light assemblies these can be had on Ebay for around $40 with free shipping. I ordered mine on Saturday and they got here today, Tuesday.
OEM would probably fit much better, but I'm not paying that much. LOL
I was also never happy with the backup light output from the OEM lamps, even after an LED upgrade. The new ones, with LEDs, shine a bit brighter.
The truck hasn't seen a car wash in 10 years, so it will take a few weeks before the new assemblies match the rest of the truck's dirty charm.
Installed with LED bulbs in backup lights.
Now, there is a bit of a gap on the side, but I have some black foam gasket stuff that will go in there just fine to fill it in. Seeing as how the lights themselves are each individually sealed much better than OEM, with proper vent tubes, I'm not too concerned about moisture. Fixing would be mostly for looks.
Jan 12, 2021 | 09:30 AM
. It still worked, but was rusted into the socket with no hope of recovery for the whole assembly. I went online and found an aftermarket tail light assembly set for $40 which looks to be better than OEM.
