Rear KED taillights - wiring info needed please

[Knightmayre]

I've bought a set of smoked LED taillights for my '90 E34 and they are finally due to arrive tomorrow (yippee)....

My question is that on my stock lights, the turn signal is at the top but on the new ones the turn signal is in the middle (in-line with the reverse lamp).
Am I going to have to change the original wiring? I do have a wiring diagram but can't really do anything until I have them in my grubby little hands :) but am assuming that I will be able to change the pins on the connector in order for all the lights to work properly.

I have seen a lot of aftermarket lights with the turn signal in the middle, but over here in Aus (as well as in the UK) they all seem to be at the top.

Here is a pic of the new ones, just for reference.

8524

TIA for any info

Cheers
Dave

[whiskychaser]

Yep. Indicator is usually at the top. But VIPMotoZ site appears to show you get a little cable with some resistors on it. Hopefully, it also includes a crossover so you will not have to change anything.

[shogun]

https://vipmotoz.com/collections/bmw-535i-1992/products/spyder_alt-yd-be3488-led-sm-smoked-tail-light
there is a short 3 wire cable with plug, maybe not a resistor, the black thing seems just to be a cable protection, I assume that is the extension cable, they mention:
What's In The Box | Pair - Driver & passenger side | Bulbs Included - signal | Built In LED - Brake, parking
What You Might Need | Re-use original bulbs - Reverse, rear fog
their youtube explains it all, from 49 seconds the backside is shown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8paISJd79o

[Knightmayre]

They arrived this morning, and I had the old ones off and the new ones fitted in just under 20 mins... Wiring was perfect, simply plug & play.
I reckon they look awesome so I'll post some pics later on once it gets a bit darker :)

Cheers!
Dave

[Knightmayre]

8526

[Knightmayre]

I've tried and tried to get the pic the right way round but it refuses and goes upside down :(

[Knightmayre]

8527

Trying again lol

[shogun]

Car looks good, very good condition. No rust, no marks on the bumpers. Question about the taillights: is that legal in AUS? Here where I live I would not pass the bi-annual inspection, as the taillights are not original and have no approval number.

[Knightmayre]

Hi there

Thanks for the nice comments about my car :) It does have hail damage on it though.
I scored the rear spoiler from a 535iS that was on eBay for AU$80 including freight.

As for the taillights they are SAE DOT approved and also have the E11 markings as well so I reckon I'll be fine (as he crosses his fingers lol)

The state I live in has no annual inspection- the only times you need one is when it changes owners or if the coppers take a dislike to your car and put a bright yellow sticker on it (called a canary).
Cheers
Dave

[genphreak]

Hi there

Thanks for the nice comments about my car http://www.bimmernut.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.png It does have hail damage on it though.
I scored the rear spoiler from a 535iS that was on eBay for AU$80 including freight.

As for the taillights they are SAE DOT approved and also have the E11 markings as well so I reckon I'll be fine (as he crosses his fingers lol)

The state I live in has no annual inspection- the only times you need one is when it changes owners or if the coppers take a dislike to your car and put a bright yellow sticker on it (called a canary).
Cheers
Dave
Yep, rego is a good scam in Victoria.

Gubmint gets money from everyone each year for registering their car, and claims its cracking down on old cars by making car inspections so hard to pass. Result: Old cars get registered (longer, fo mo money) until they are no longer wanted, and when someone else wants to re-register one they can't, so its gets wasted (mo money from new car sales). Win, win, so long as the message gets well managed (mo money fo the spin doctors)...

Not sure I believe those DOT and E11 markings, there are so many fake items sold online it's quite a concern now that the authorities are not following up on it. Then again, an enormous amount of new cars have silvery lights that cannot be seen to be working until they are moved out of sunlight. How those pass any kind of test I don't know, (maybe they test at night!).

But frankly, if someone has an accident and the lights are at fault, and the mod was the problem, its easy for a lawyer to prove and throw responsbility at the 'modder' as the evidence is seldom totally destroyed. That said, I have a set on the e46 which seem quite good, except I really need to get around to removing the 1/2 kg of ceramic resistors they have hanging off the back of them and then fixing the LKM so it doesn't alert for failed bulbs.

Some of these tails are pretty bad, mostly the quality problems are due to UV degradation making the plastic go all pastey white. These look ok, but I personally prefer the whole lot to be LED. On e34, the rear globes are wired back to front so you have to swap the wiring around to fit any polarity-dependent LED bulb. I've not seen anyone do this yet.

But on these the tailgate assembly is probably the normal way round (centre pole/s positive on the bulb), so you should be able retrofit LED bulbs to the reverse and rear fog lamps. I've found that some LED lamps without the built-in CANBUS resistors actually draw enough current to keep the LKM warning system happy. This is good because it means you usually also ensure a bright enough bulb t replace the factory filament bulbs. You just need enough LEDs in the cluster without making the cluster too big to physically locate into the lamp socket (ie not be too long or too wide), but you have to measure and test this yourself to see what works :-(.

E.g. For the number plate lamps (a 10W bulb), IIRC you have to use at least a 38mm Festoon lamp (or was it a 41?) with a rectangular PCB using 16x 3528 LEDs- though probably the 20x 1210 LED ones are even better.

[Knightmayre]

Before I bought those lights I had been in touch with the manufacturer (http://spyderauto.com/home.php) and they assured me that they were indeed SAE/DOT certified, but they also said that they wouldn't sell direct to an end-user, only to distributors.
Took me ages to find one that would stock them for me and it also took forever to be shipped from the US.
Spyder also said they used Philips LED assemblies in their lights and decent resistor packs.
I'm happy with them, they're bright enough to be seen in bright sunlight, just hope that they don't degrade in sunlight now you mention it. They better not as they were pretty damn expensive!

I'm not going to fit LED indicator bulbs or fog/reverse lights either. Doesn't really get foggy in my area :)

I thought I might have issues with the indicators being in the middle but they work a treat.

Cheers
Dave