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Installed a 3rd level brake light 9 years back as a ‘temporary’ solution to make it clearer when I was using the brakes. I’ve been meaning to install something cleaner that’s not partly covered by the spare wheel cover. I’ve also noticed that my indictors could be clearer, people don’t seem to see them. This is either because they are quite low or the angle makes it more difficult to see them.
I found some LED tail lights from the motor bike aftermarket made by Kellermann model Atto DF. There are versions that are brakes only but the ones I bought are tail, indictor and brake combined.
The LED lights are very small, but very bright.
Here’s one unit next to the regular rear lights.
Bench testing the lights – they leave bright spot in your eyes!
In order to mount these I dug into more of the motorbike aftermarket, ordering this bracket from https://www.hogparts.co.uk/
– this is a P clamp made by Kuryakyn, and a Kellerman Atto rigid mounting M8 x 20mm which fits nicely into the P clamp. The clamp mounts to my seatbelt bar which is 1.25″ cold drawn steel. The aluminium spacer is removed to fit on the 1.25″ pipe.
I also tried a Kellermann Bullet Atto extension 15mm to see what the lights were like a bit higher up – wasn’t needed to clear the spare wheel cover and didn’t look as good.
The M8 bolts that came with the Kellerman M8 x 20mm where silver, so I dug out some more compact nuts and powder coated them gloss black.
One came out perfect and one with a bit of chip, but you can’t see that when mounted.
Test fit with all the parts
The wires that come out the bottom are quite thin. To make these look nicer and protect them I covered them in shrink tube and zip tied them to the seatbelt bar and roll bar.
To get the wires inside the tub I added a hole and rubber grommet big enough to put spade terminals through.
The second stage of the projected required the entire boot area to be taken out so I could get to the rear wiring loom.
This is the exposed loom, I spliced into to the tail lights, indictor left and indicator right. There was already a cable for the brake lights, plus an extra 12v+ and a ground.
Put a PVC cover over the new wires, used shrink tubing and insulating tape to tidy up the loom. I added some weather sealed connectors at the other end.
From the rear car loom into the tub I created a small loom just for the lighting cables. I left the ground separate so at a later date I can use it for also grounding an interior boot light. The 4 pin is all the rear light connections.
I went a bit overboard and ran wires for the left and the right indictor to both sides – oops. Maybe some day I’ll need them.
So one of the wires on each side is covered up. I used coloured shrink tube to make it easy to connect the spade terminals together correctly.
I added a large hold in the side panel big enough to fit the 4 pin connectors through.
The last part of the process was to tie up the cables along the top of the tub so they are not hanging down. Then mount all the rest of he boot interior panels and boot hatch back onto the car.
The final result – nice and clear high level brake lights and as a bonus supplementary indictors.
View here: https://youtu.be/Fof8zMXHaUI
I found some LED tail lights from the motor bike aftermarket made by Kellermann model Atto DF. There are versions that are brakes only but the ones I bought are tail, indictor and brake combined.
The LED lights are very small, but very bright.
Here’s one unit next to the regular rear lights.
Bench testing the lights – they leave bright spot in your eyes!
In order to mount these I dug into more of the motorbike aftermarket, ordering this bracket from https://www.hogparts.co.uk/
– this is a P clamp made by Kuryakyn, and a Kellerman Atto rigid mounting M8 x 20mm which fits nicely into the P clamp. The clamp mounts to my seatbelt bar which is 1.25″ cold drawn steel. The aluminium spacer is removed to fit on the 1.25″ pipe.
I also tried a Kellermann Bullet Atto extension 15mm to see what the lights were like a bit higher up – wasn’t needed to clear the spare wheel cover and didn’t look as good.
The M8 bolts that came with the Kellerman M8 x 20mm where silver, so I dug out some more compact nuts and powder coated them gloss black.
One came out perfect and one with a bit of chip, but you can’t see that when mounted.
Test fit with all the parts
The wires that come out the bottom are quite thin. To make these look nicer and protect them I covered them in shrink tube and zip tied them to the seatbelt bar and roll bar.
To get the wires inside the tub I added a hole and rubber grommet big enough to put spade terminals through.
The second stage of the projected required the entire boot area to be taken out so I could get to the rear wiring loom.
This is the exposed loom, I spliced into to the tail lights, indictor left and indicator right. There was already a cable for the brake lights, plus an extra 12v+ and a ground.
Put a PVC cover over the new wires, used shrink tubing and insulating tape to tidy up the loom. I added some weather sealed connectors at the other end.
From the rear car loom into the tub I created a small loom just for the lighting cables. I left the ground separate so at a later date I can use it for also grounding an interior boot light. The 4 pin is all the rear light connections.
I went a bit overboard and ran wires for the left and the right indictor to both sides – oops. Maybe some day I’ll need them.
So one of the wires on each side is covered up. I used coloured shrink tube to make it easy to connect the spade terminals together correctly.
I added a large hold in the side panel big enough to fit the 4 pin connectors through.
The last part of the process was to tie up the cables along the top of the tub so they are not hanging down. Then mount all the rest of he boot interior panels and boot hatch back onto the car.
The final result – nice and clear high level brake lights and as a bonus supplementary indictors.
View here: https://youtu.be/Fof8zMXHaUI
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