The $13 LED Tail light strip from Ollies.

I got to thinking while the GF was shopping for Sheets
:hang:

I came across an entire row of these packs of two 12v 10" LED strips for $5 and packs of two 15" LED 12v strips.

I threw the package of 400 thread count Egyptian silk sheets and ran to measure the lip of the rear hatch. 50" exactly. Badass.

I bought a pack of 10" strips and a pack of 15" strips. 50 inches in all for $13.





The original plan was to have the 10" strips on the outsides of the hatch as blinkers and the 30" in the center to light up with the brake light. As fate may have it one of the 15" strips was cracked so I went ahead and installed the 10" strips on the outside.

All I did was clean the mounting surface on the hatch (well I had the GF clean the surface)



Then pull off the plastic shroud on the rear hatch. There is a philips head screw in the top two corners and two more behind caps in the brake light housing. Once those were all out pull down the panel exposing the bare hatch.

I mounted the LED strips with the supplied 3m tape and ran my wires to the tail light. Black/White to the brake lights light wire, Black to the brake lights black for each strip. No, i didn't run an inline fuse. LEDS barely draw any power and I really didnt think it was needed, maybe that will bite me in the ass, IDK.

Then I just re attached the inner panel and vioa! The brightness of the LED's perfectly matches that of the stock tails.





Ill be exchanging the pack of 15" LED's for another and then Ill re-wire the outside 10" strips to the blinkers while the center two strips will be wired to the brake light. All in all, it took les than an hour. Is a night and day differnce, and only cost me $13. I went to the local pep boys yesterday as well for a sensor and gues what. The exact same LED strips were $29.99 each

What do you guys think?

Looks good! would look better all the way across.

How about a daylight shot of the LEDs on the hatch?
Billy

^Thats what I can't decide, do I want to make those blinkers or a brake light all the way across.

Guys?

Plays For Jeeps said:

^Thats what I can't decide, do I want to make those blinkers or a brake light all the way across.

Guys?

Click to expand...

Both
Billy

JeepFreak21 said:

How about a daylight shot of the LEDs on the hatch?
Billy

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I can get one of those later today after my break. It looks alittle odd with only the two strips but they're only .5x10x.25 take about about half that lip. It will look alot better with the other two strips all the way across.

I was thinking about mounting the 15" strips on the D pillars above the tail light Vertically to blink with the blinkers. What do you guys think?

Full brake strip.
Blinkers/ brake strip on hatch.
or Brakes on hatch and blinkers on the pillars? The strips are bendable so mounting is a breeze.

Bling

any other colors these come in? Those would be sweet for rock lights if they came in blue or white. Where the heck is Ollie's? LOL

I've got some LED's as rock lights that I got from work.
ledtronics.com

Yes, they do come in blue too. Ill be putting the last 30" strip on later today

Red is fine to be used as tail lights. Blue can not be used legally anywhere in the US on any part of the rig being that it is a emergency light. DOT- the Department of transpotation had big issues when long haulers truckers install blue lights anywere. I got stopped at a scale and couldn't move the truck till I removed the lights.

Blue is way kewl on the inside though!

^I was thinking of using a few blue strips behind the grille up front

they go well with the death trap tow points

Great idea. Please post some pics when you are done installing them. Do you think it's possible to use these LEDs to totally replace your tail lights if you use enough of them and have the brake (red), backing up (white), and blinker (amber) functions? I have probably have the last Farmer Matt's steel tailight housing he produced being I still need to cut the holes in them so I'd like some idea to either install the LEDs in these steel housings somehow or just do what you did and install the LEDs on the fiberglass hatch door.

Please keep the pics coming. I love cheap fab where you get a great bang for your buck!!!! :guitar:
I've gotten a lot of cheap rock lights from Walmart that work just fine, I would rather replace them with LEDs if I could though due to their durability, easy mounting, and hopefully brightness, although I think they are dimmer then a standard cheapy bulb light, could be wrong on that point so please don't hold me to it. ;-)

Onkover: Great post on the Cali laws, and probably also laws statewide. Cali sure has some strict emission laws and probably also laws on using LEDs thanks to all the ricer cars running LED under the car lighting for some bling bling. They ruined it for us wheelers who want to just get some LEDs for better visability on the road and/or to use for great rock lights under our rigs to see when we wheel at night and also in the back so it's harder to break them on the tight rock crawling trails many of us love to run.

Troy

RyanM said:

they go well with the death trap tow points

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Thanks! You wouldnt believe how well they work to pull a sled with :jester: . Once again, those hooks are tied into the frame with a length of C-channel behind the bumper.

I just got a hitch assembly and a D-ring set-up for it from the junkyard for $20.