Center Tail Light Illumination

Procedure:

1) Start by unclipping the corners of the center rear interior panels.
The clips are located in the circled areas of the these pictures:

2) Push the interior panel down to expose the circled fastening screws:

3) Remove the two panels on each side of the interior to expose the
taillight wiring:

4) Loosen all seven of the fastening screws and pull out the center
lens assembly (since i had already done the mod when i took these pictures,
i couldn't pull the whole thing out):

5) Now, the lens is clipped and glued into the black housing. i worked
it out with the tip of my pocket-knife, but be very careful because the
plastic can be brittle and crack (I chipped mine slightly). The black
plastic is flexible enough to take a little abuse, though. When you
get them apart, you'll see that the entire back of the lens is covered
in opaque silver paint. I scraped at it with a straight razor and
it made nice, circular holes through the paint. See for yourself:

6) I mounted my lights vertically inside the black housing, strung between
two small metal eyelets by their wires. I couldn't remove the entire
housing for a better picture as it was already wired, but you get the general
idea. I used two low wattage lamp bulbs that i got from walmart for
about two bucks. I was wary of using a higher wattage bulb as it
might have melted the plastic. I ran the wires through the drainage
holes in the bottom of the housing, then behind the tail lights assembly
to either side. I had to loosen the tail lights to do this:

7) I covered the back of the housing in foil for reflectivity.
I had previously done the mod and left out the foil, and it didn't illuminate
properly. You don't have to use foil, i'm sure there are many other
things that could be substituted:

8) I wired the lights to the side tail lights, because they only use
a 12+ and a ground, no blinker or brake light line, to keep things simple
and easy:

9) Test that the lights are working:

10) Put it all back together. The center piece lens just snaps
back in. Tighten up all the bolts and there you go:

(I took this picture at night with no flash on the camera.
The centerpiece is actually a bit brighter than that, but can't really
be shown due to limitations in the digital camera i used)

[i]This mod was developed and documented by DarkOne.[/i]

Tail_Lights