DIY: Inner circle tail lights/Skyline MOD & dual reverse lights

[kdog]

Skyline MOD & Dual reverse lights

Parts/Tools needed:

- Solder & soldering iron
- wire
- 10mm wrench
- Flat head screwdriver
- Drill bit (size of a wedge bulb)
- Shrink tube
- Electrical Tape
- Wedge bulbs (4)
- Phillips screw driver
- Automatic wire strippers

Install

1. First begin by removing the tail light out of the vehicle. To do this you will need to remove the boot lid trim. Once those are off, unplug the reverse light bulbs and the two 10mm nuts on the back of the tail lights, remove those then pull the tail light out. (Volkswagen Golf Rear Lid Trims – Removal and Installation | my-gti.com link might be helpful)

2. Separate the bulb housing from the tail light, you have to remove the 3 phillips screws in the back that hold on the silver reflector for the reverse bulb.

3. Mark where you want the holes for the bulbs. What i had done was used the lines from the outer tails and used a ruler to get a straight line (image below). Make sure you mark them symmetrically on both tails or you will be able to tell the difference once they are installed.


4. Next you need to drill into the marked location using a drill bit about the same size as a wedge bulb which i will explain later, what i done was have someone hold the tail light while i drilled from under to avoid plastic falling inside the light.


5. Put the reflect back together and the bulb holder, if you plan on doing the dual reverse lights make sure to remove the red plastic from the right inner tail light. You will also need to cut the bulb holder to clear the holes.


6. I used regular wedge bulbs, I started by taking a regular bulb and then bending the wires up a bit and threading through that and soldering them together and add some heat shrink or electrical tape to avoid contact.


7. Next is place the bulbs in the tail housing. I placed the bulb in the hole I drilled and as it was a tight fit it didn't need any silicon to hold it in place. I didn't want to place any silicon to hold it in just in case it needed to be replaced and can be just pulled out.

8. I tied the two bulbs together into 1 wire and used electrical tape to protect the exposed wires.


Now thats done, you will need to find a place to provide power to the bulbs. What i wanted was to have it come on with the light switch and have a nice brightness to it. So what i done was cut the wire that was being used for the non brake light bulb as i didnt need this anymore after doing the full circle brake light mod. This way it probably would have removed the bulb error when doing the full circle brake mod and i can adjust the brightness of the inner circle lights while the outer remains the same.

9. What i done was ran down the wires to the side of the hatch and through the holes where the rubber grommets and wiring goes from the hatch door to the car. You will need to remove the trim by simply pulling it off.


10. Once thats off you can run the wires down the side through the grommet and down near the rear light harness. You will need to cut the second wire, this is used for supplying power for the rear non brake light. Tape the wire on the harness and solder the wire you ran down from the wedges bulbs to power supply wire.


11. for the ground i just connected it to the point near the rear lights.



The end product



Ross Tech

You can adjust the brightness for the inner circles with vcds



for dual reverse lights all you simply have to do is use the wire stripper to expose the wires into both rear fog light and reverse light power supply and connect these two with one wire. That easy!

[gle1234]

Thanks for the 2 write ups and pictures mate, I want to give this a go sometime.

[themarvel2004]

Does the mod and VCDS change mean there are no longer warnings of bulb failure on the dash??

[dubster99]

Keen to do this on my jetta but its totally different to this though!