MESO Customs 3RD Brake Light housings

Sure thing. I'll do one in my build log and on IG. It'll be a little different if you don't have the tools to do open-barrel crimping + the pin contacts for the OEM housing and matching bullet connectors that go into the KC lights. Also the chase-lights are going down to a slot on my Bussmann. If there's anything specific you want me to highlight just let me know. I can dish-out part numbers if you want to take the same path.

 

Thanks I really appreciate it and hopefully other members can use this information as a guidance.

I plan on running 2 red brake lights and two white bed lights (might change those to amber chase lights but it’s the same way to wire them up). If you wouldn’t mind just listing the parts you used. Looks like you are using a plug of some sort. Are you connecting that to the oem brake plug? It also looks like you looped all the negative wires together and put them in the plug and looped all the positive wires for the brake light into the plug as well. Any particular reason why you used green and blue wire? I plan on connecting my bed lights to a switch on a blue sea fuse box. Just a step by step write up would be good or basically anything you can provide.

 

Happy to help. I can actually address your wiring questions without even installing it.

It looks like you have a 2nd Gen so your wiring will be identical to mine (3rd Gen AC). So if you're going to run wires for a cab light or chase light you're going to need to take the entire brake light housing off; there's no way around it. With that said you'll need to snag another gasket. I got my gasket from a member here for another project, but I think you can get them on Amazon.

When you pull the housing off you'll disconnect it from the truck and you'll see a connector attached to the part you removed from the truck:


What I did was I de-pinned that connector since me and a few other nerds had a hard time finding it aftermarket. However, we were able to find the pins that go into that connector; so we could re-use it.


We tracked-down bullet connectors that mate perfectly well with the ones from KC + the contacts that go into the OEM housing. You can get them from Corsa:
Male Bullet
Female Bullet
Pin contacts for OEM 2-position connector

I then built some jumpers to complete the replacement harness. If you look at the OEM connector it had green (+) and white/black (-) so I tried to replicate it. I ran out of white/black 20 TXL so I used all black. Hopefully that addresses your first question about wire color choice. Since I have 4 KC cyclones I could just jumper the ground across all 4 (black wires) and plug them back into the factory connector. It saves you from needing to run a ground wire for your cargo light / chase lights. However, I only wanted 2 of the KC's to attach to the brake light circuit, so I only jumped the 2 center red lights (+) together and put them into the factory connector (as it runs the brake light circuit). The other 2 are for my chase lights (+) -- I made a separate set of jumpers for the outer 2 amber lights using blue wire just to differentiate.


Once you pull the whole housing off you can route your wires through the old light holes in the chrome housing. Since you'll essentially be blind once you fish the wires through I used shrink labels to make sure I don't mixed-up my red and amber (+). Final result looks like this all fished through:


Now the OEM connector at the bottom of the image goes back into the truck and the brake lights will work perfect. The blue wire will run along the headliner, down the a-pillar, out through the firewall, and then double-crimp to my Bussmann with the amber backlight of my SSC2 lights. I went through all of this trouble as everything is now reversible: I can always take this housing off and put my old one back on so long as I de-pin again. It also required no permanent modification to the factory wiring of both my truck and the KC cyclones.

Bonus: let your OCD run wild and flip those KC labels to 90 degrees upright.

 

Thanks for all that great information. That really does give a clearer picture. I look forward to seeing it installed.

Also not sure if you can help but I want to incorporate this module with the red cyclones.https://www.diodedynamics.com/2a-led-pwm-dimmer-with-bypass.html

I think it will match the 2nd gen tails perfectly. Would you mind explaining how to wire it to work with your wiring setup.

 

You’d need to splice the ground for the PWM into a common ground like the one provided by the brake light circuit. So you could run your jumpers on the ground wire to feed it. Then the “high power” PWM input would go to the (+) of your brake light jumpers. The dimmer setting would go to some sort of running light (+) feed. On the 2nd gen I’m not sure where the closest running light (+) would be. The cyclone (+) would be on the pass-through side of the module. The ground of the cyclone would be part of that common ground you would be building.

Note: I don’t own a PWM. I just know what it is. Would these overload that module? Idk. So don’t take my word for it. Also why PWM? Isn’t that just a fancy word for duty cycle?

 

I think the module can withstand 2Amps and the cyclones are like 0.42Amps each. Not sure why they call it a PWM but I also didn’t know what a duty cycle was until I googled it. https://www.automationdirect.com/microsites/productivity/software/help/Content/303.htm
This article gave me some guidance on the matter sorta.

thanks for explaining the wiring to me. That makes more sense now.

 

Done

 

Dam that amber looks bad ass

 

Well done as always! I ordered the Baja 5 but I'm now seeing some issues with those haha. Are these starting to get shipped out??

 

Would 1 amber be enough for a dust light? or 1 red for a brake light? I know it's uneven (ocd, lol). But I would like to run brake, amber and a white bed light.

 

Which crimping tool do you recommend for the job?

 

Any inexpensive open-barrel crimp tool should work fine. Several ratcheting versions on Amazon for around $30. Or ball out and buy one from Delphi/Aptiv.

 

My BD4-NMO will be here Monday! have all the plugs, wires, gasket and nmo. now I just have to wait for the Baja Designs lights.

 

Mine was originally estimated for delivery tomorrow but came in today

 

I love when that happens!

 

well damn looked what came in early!!!!

 

Wow this is a lot to weed through. Anyone have an install guide / tips / pics or whatever for the BD5? Looks like it requires a relay and I can't find anyone that has mentioned installing it (although I'm sure it's somewhere. I'll keep searching but if anyone wants to help save me some time!

 

When is the 3rd gen 3rd brake light coming back in stock?

 

Does anyone know if the V2 cyclones fit?

 

Any idea when these will be back in stock?