Super Ultimate 3rd Brake Light Build

Wow, he 3D printed his own connector? Badass.

Doesn’t look like an exact match but I’m guessing it works well enough?

I assume there is a good reason only 2 wires are tapped?

 

my BD5 is finally on the way. planning on 3 red lights for brakes and 2 white lights for bed lights/reverse. for those of you using relays, where are you installing the relays?

 

Correct. The 2 wires coming off my plug are BRAKE and CAB LIGHT power. You will connect these directly to your new lights. The GROUND from the OEM connector is not used(as we have had issues of it back feeding/causing interference) so that is why it’s removed from myharness. What you will do is tie all the
ground wires from your new lights and crimp them into the yellow loop connector supplied in the kit. Slip the loop into one of the “c-clips” that are used to anchor down the light. I included instructions with all lights.. but I’m not the best user guide creator

Nice little break out board! Looks like the ECT connector (which unfortunately is a diff shape). I searched high and low for the male connector that would plug into the factory overhead and never could locate it. It’s molded/integrated into the brake light housing which may have something to do with it. I ended up tooling my own mold and molding the custom connector so there’s no guessing on fitment.

 

Thanks did the explanation and background. I agree based on more recent photos that the connector I have doesn’t look like a match. I did not realize so much prior work had been done on this little topic. Wow. Quite impressed. Highly useful to know about the problems with using the OEM ground too.

 

I used the paint in the picture. Its nothing special, just some model car paint I had left over.

 

As I recall, everyone was just using flat black, non-gloss spray paint… I’m sure krylon and the like. Some painted the whole thing and used a qtip and cleaner to wipe off the LEDs. Others (me included) just used small squares of mask tape to cover the LEDs and removed when it dried.

 

God damn hail…

Now I have to wait for another run.

 

I have one of that exact model I was refurbishing. @MESO just sent me a new hardware kit for it.
I can stop and just sell you the body, or all together. Understand if you would rather wait for shiny-shiny.

 

yikes. i have the BD4 housing w/o the antenna, and i park my truck outside in hail country, too... thanks for posting. this may be the time to do something in advance. gonna consider some options for mini armor of some kind.

 

Oh damn, that must have been some strong hail

I might have to do something too, lol.

 

I think I will wait it out right now.
Thank you for the offer though.

 

Installing mine today!! BD5! Any last minute tips? I’m good to go on the wiring thanks to @kmorgan3.

I think I have this correct, for double cabs we can either drop the headliner and preserve the OEM brake light or trash the OEM and not drop the headliner (drill it out from the bed)?

 

Get yourself some of this MD high density foam at LOWES. Lay it out and create a casket that will sit flush to outside of light housing. As soon as you unroll this stuff it expands up to a 1/4". Then apply and when you tighten down the light housing against cab it will compress the foam creating a seal. The good thing about this is that if you need to work on it you just loosen and then can just re-install light. If you go silicone route you will have to clean both light and cab and then reapply silicon.







Here is what it will look like once complete

 

gonna check back in 6 months to see how that works out for you

 

Its been on for 2 years no issues

 

MESO includes a round rubber gasket that creates a compression seal. I checked the length and glued the ends together to complete with no gap.

 

really like the color match. not sure I would trust myself to get that completely sealed with just weather stripping

 

im amazed it did that to the housing yet didn’t dent the roof.

 

Oh, it dented the roof!

 

Honestly, MESOs seal works fine. No need to silicone it to hell. It’s not a bathtub.