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Author Topic: CJ7: US spec wiring - flashing brake lights  (Read 1776 times)

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johnnyboy

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CJ7: US spec wiring - flashing brake lights
« on: June 04, 2017, 08:44:01 PM »




Any suggestions on the easiest / best modification to a USA spec wiring setup to make it flash an amber indicator bulb (like we do here...) rather than flashing the sidelights/brakelights (like they seem to do there...)? Particularly the bit where they flash the red lights OFF when they are turned on?
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robpark

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Re: CJ7: US spec wiring - flashing brake lights
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2017, 01:18:05 PM »

I had to do mine for the MOT recently. I used the reversing lights for indicators and managed to work out how to split the brake lights & indicators. The brake light runs from the pedal switch up to the column where it gets merged with the indicators. My reversing lights weren't working so I had nothing to loose, so I patched the brake lights off the connector under the column and into the reversing light cable (I've got the cable colours somewhere). This gives you indicators only on the brake lights and brake lights on the reversing lights. So then, at the back, you need to swap the connections to the brake and reversing lights - put amber bulbs in the reversing lights - and voila! Just be careful where you pick your spot to swap cables - they run to the driver's side first and then split over to the other side.
Have you got a wiring diagram?
I just sent you a PM with my phone no. - let me know if you don't get it. 
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IrishKenCJ7

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Re: CJ7: US spec wiring - flashing brake lights
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2017, 05:07:31 PM »

I had to do mine for the Irish equivalent. A guy just split the signal wire and but an amber light above my light unit. So this amber flashes when the brake flashes and when sigal flashes. I would have thought this a fail but it's passed since 2004.
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eastryjeep

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Re: CJ7: US spec wiring - flashing brake lights
« Reply #3 on: July 02, 2017, 08:58:30 AM »

Search the Truckman site (the rear light manufacturer) and there is an equivalent to the CJ lights but has an amber strip/segment to it. I think they also went on the back of the YJs. Looks pretty standard from behind & pretty cool. It is in effect a direct swap but I took my feed from the from the front lights and ran a single wire down the inside of each chassis rail to power the new bulb in the back.
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johnnyboy

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Re: CJ7: US spec wiring - flashing brake lights
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2017, 09:46:07 PM »




Thanks for the help guys.


With your encouragement, I did some hunting and came up with the following.


I decided I didn't like the old loom arrangement of "down the drivers (Lefthand) side of the car, down behind the wheelarch, connectors to lights in the wheelarch, wires across the back crossmember into the area behind the RH wheelbox, more connectors and into the lights" arrangement, which is both difficult to install once the tank is in place and having connectors in such a wet, muddy and difficult to work on area behind the wheels has been a source of much trouble over the years... so we made up a new "split" loom out of 7 core cable ("trailer wire"?) and ran one cable down the drivers side, the other across behind the dash and down the passenger side. We had to drill a new 1" diameter hole in the horizontal supporting plate by the passenger door lock and another down through the RH wheelbox into the back of the lights to accommodate this. (Cone drill and grommets etc.).


The old (original) rear lights were a bit manky so I bought a pair of cheap surface mount square LED trailer light clusters from Truckstop for £8 each, which I thought were in keeping but more low profile and modern. Thw rear wings now have no provision for red repeaters on the sides of the rear wings (which I have checked is not an MOT issue...) so did not have to do anything with these.


This allowed us to keep the junctions inside the passenger compartment and only run solid wires down into the wheelarch to the lights. We also had a wire spare in the cables to act as an earth, terminated them it to a nice new earth connector under the dash and did away with the old "body earth" scenario that has similarly caused me problems over the years.


We put in a new flasher relay on a couple of flying leads back to the fusebox/block on the bulkhead to replace the old (round) flasher unit and took the indicator leads straight off the relay to our two "looms".


We had some fun working out how the brake lights were wired (ie. flashing them  off when the flashers were working...) for about 40 minutes and decided to just take the feed direct from the brake light switch, split it to the two looms and wire them in complete. This took about ten minutes.


Sidelight were easy, just split the wire down the two looms.


Then discovered that we needed ballast resistors to stop the indicators flashing too fast (this LED stuff is all new to us...), £5 each from Truckstop. Wired them in parallel to our nice new connectors in the back rear corners of the passenger compartment - and we are done!


Thanks again for your help and encouragement.


John
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bgbazz

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Re: CJ7: US spec wiring - flashing brake lights
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2017, 10:13:39 PM »

Well done!

 :icon_super:
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robpark

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Re: CJ7: US spec wiring - flashing brake lights
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2017, 12:29:07 PM »

Nicely done, John - and sounds like a much cleaner design than the original  :13:
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