12 LED Tail/Brake Light Swap

After having the tail/brake light bulb rattle itself loose over and over I needed something different. I found an LED tail/brake light assembly from a TRX400/TRX450 that looked like it may work for $50 new on eBay.

Stock light cover (top) and new LED assembly (bottom). Not a bad match.

The stock light is way longer though. I junked the other part of the stock housing already, but you could add an addtional 0.5" or so to the stocker if it were installed.

How amazing is this... they came with identical connectors. The Chinese desire to re-use designs for cheaper manufacturing comes in handy sometimes.

I plugged the new light in and nothing happened. Even though the connectors are the same, the wiring is not.

The auction listed the wiring one way and it was wrong, so I had to test it myself. If anyone else decides to try this out (at least with a Vento Triton) here's what needs to be done. Cut the wiring harness in half (I removed some excess length too) and reconnect as follows :

Green from tail light to Green/Yellow from connector.
Green/Yellow from tail light to Brown from connector.
Brown from tail light to Green from connector.

It's a good idea to test for proper operation before soldering or butt-connecting wires together.

With the wiring correct, it's time to mount the new light. As you can see, the mounting studs for the new light are too wide for the existing holes but not wide enough to clear the stock brackets.

I notched the stock brackets enough that the mounting studs could clear.

Then I took a $0.49 1.5" L bracket and cut it into two pieces. You can probably find a flat bracket to work. I happened to have this around. The holes need to be drilled out to 5/16".

I mounted the brackets using 5/16" bolts/nuts.

Then the tail light was mounted to the brackets. The tail light's mounting studs are M6 x 1.0.

Here it is installed. If you duck down and look at it you can see that there is a gap because the other light was so much longer. I should probably make a trim panel for that, not saying I'm gonna... but I should lol.

Tail light.

Brake light.

I like the look of the LED lights way better, although the stock housing had a better appearance. The LEDs are definitely brighter.