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PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2022 9:02 pm 
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Location: North America
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[this is a publicly-accessible repeat of this old Social Corner post]

Here's how to set up the rear lights the way the Australian-market cars were wired from the factory, so you can have amber rear turn signals (which do a better job than red ones of preventing you being hit in traffic) without having to add any new lamps to the vehicle. I have my truck set up this way, and it works great:

Cut the wire we'll call "1" that runs from the brake lamp switch "A" to the turn signal switch "B".

Your existing brake lamp wires at that point become your rear turn signal (only) wires.

Run a new wire from the brake switch "A" side of the cut wire "1", to the rear of the vehicle to power the brake lamps.

Cut the reversing lamp wire "2" downstream of the reversing lamp switch "C" ("downstream" means between the reverse lamp switch and the reverse lamps), and connect the reverse lamp switch "C" side of the wire "2" to the turn signal switch side "B" of the cut wire "1".

Now you've got some wire-switching to do at the back of the vehicle.

The wire that formerly fed the bright (brake/turn) filament in your outboard red lamps now feeds your rear turn/reverse lamps, so move that wire to the inboard socket, on each side of the car.

Connect one leg of your new brake lamp wire (which you ran from brake lamp switch to rear of car in the third step, above) to the outboard bright-filament socket contact, on each side of the car.

The original wires that fed the reversing lamps will not be used.

Result of this setup:

Brake lamps are both on with foot on brake, off with foot off brake, regardless of turn signal lever position.

Shift to "Reverse" while not signalling any turn: Both rear turn/reverse lights come on solid bright amber. Red brake lamps continue working normally.

Signal for a right turn in any gear but "Reverse", and the right turn/reverse lamp flashes bright amber. Left turn/reverse lamp remains unlit.

Signal for a right turn in "Reverse" gear, and the right turn/reverse lamp flashes bright amber while the left turn/reverse light burns solid bright amber.

Operation of the front turn signals is not changed, they keep working as they always have.

The amber signals are better-performing and safer—not only as turn signals themselves, but it's known/shown that following drivers consistently react quicker and more accurately to the brake lamps when the turn signals are separate and amber (rather than separate and red, or red combined w/brake lamps).

You can see the combination turn/reverse lamps on my (now-sold) truck wired up this way in this short YouTube video (flash rate looks uneven because of YouTube's video compression; in reality it was quite steady)

And, divorcing the rear turns from the brake lamps makes it very easy to add a 3rd brake light to supplement the relatively small and dim brake/tail lights on many of our cars.

Also see this post.

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