Anyone know how to separate the blinker and taillight?

[BrianDye]

Title is kind of misleading but in another thread, a member mentioned the Asian(?) 4th gens, and how they have an amber turn signal in the taillights. I am not a fan of the way they look, but I have always wanted to do a custom taillight, where the top circle isnt just a marker light anymore, but a marker and the blinker, while the bottom is the brake light.

Problem is, our brake light bulbs are both the brake, and blinker. When the blinker is on, that disables the brake signal, so it can flash.

My plan would be to buy a spare set of taillights and either try to bake them open, or carefully dremmel them out from the back. I want to do a Range Rover style taillight, where the running light (Whatever you want to call it) would be two red LED halo's, one in each circle, and then the brakes would be the bottom circle, but an LED bulb like I have now, and blinker would be an LED in the top circle.

Got a million other things going on right now, but I've thought about this mod even before I had a 4th gen. Would love to see if its possible to separate those circuits somehow.

 

[MotorCityFats13]

you tie into the circuit at the front turn signals.... run some wires add a few relays if you like and now you have no brake light function yet it comes on with running's and blinks

would be much more easy than trying to reverse engineer this horrible can-buss crap

 

[USMCBuckWild]

Canbus is the devil!!

Cool idea though, I think it would look pretty cool

 

[Trac Marks]

Instead of a bunch of added wires and relays (not sure what a relay would do?), maybe look into a "vehicle-to-vehicle tail light signal converter". Any towing place will have several options - Uhaul, camper supply, e-trailer.com, etc. Hoppy, Curt, Reece, Teknosha, etc.

These are commonly used to allow a trailer with separated red stop AND amber turn signals to be fully functional when being towed by a vehicle with only red stop/turn units, like your Explorer. If this doesn't make sense, think of it as your tail lights being the trailer you are pulling.

Example is the Tow Ready 118158:
https://www.etrailer.com/p-118158.html

You'd wire this into the harness before it splits to form left & right turn signal and "split" the output brake to both left & right sides with new wires that you would run. You can even install this at your trailer hitch harness and eliminate the factory tail light plugs altogether, less parking lamps and reverse circuits.

 

[BrianDye]

you tie into the circuit at the front turn signals.... run some wires add a few relays if you like and now you have no brake light function yet it comes on with running's and blinks

would be much more easy than trying to reverse engineer this horrible can-buss crap

That's why I love this site. Thank you! That's perfect, tie into the front blinkers (I run LEDs, so relays aren't even necessary, and then I can tie the brake lights into the 3rd brake light. So simple! I would've never thought about that.

Instead of a bunch of added wires and relays (not sure what a relay would do?), maybe look into a "vehicle-to-vehicle tail light signal converter". Any towing place will have several options - Uhaul, camper supply, e-trailer.com, etc. Hoppy, Curt, Reece, Teknosha, etc.

These are commonly used to allow a trailer with separated red stop AND amber turn signals to be fully functional when being towed by a vehicle with only red stop/turn units, like your Explorer. If this doesn't make sense, think of it as your tail lights being the trailer you are pulling.

Example is the Tow Ready 118158:
https://www.etrailer.com/p-118158.html

You'd wire this into the harness before it splits to form left & right turn signal and "split" the output brake to both left & right sides with new wires that you would run. You can even install this at your trailer hitch harness and eliminate the factory tail light plugs altogether, less parking lamps and reverse circuits.

That's a good idea as well! If it's cheap enough, I may just do that to save from running new wire the length of the X. Thanks!

I'll keep everyone posted, this project probably won't happen for another month at least as I have to drop another $800 or so on brakes and shocks/struts.

That's my plan though, two red LED halos on each side as the "running" lights, and then the bottom light will be brakes, top will be the blinker. It would even be easy to run an amber blinker, you could run it in the reverse light clear lens, while still using that for a reverse light with both bulbs.

 

[BrianDye]

I was kind of wanting to order a set of the Mountaineer clear taillights with the chrome bezels on them (And painting those black) to try out, I think they would look very good, but DAMN they are an arm and a leg!

Plus, the only info I can find is a member who wanted the Explorer tails on his Mounty and said they left a gap at the bottom, so im assuming for some reason they wouldn't fit right. That would bug me.

 

[MotorCityFats13]

I was kind of wanting to order a set of the Mountaineer clear taillights with the chrome bezels on them (And painting those black) to try out, I think they would look very good, but DAMN they are an arm and a leg!

Plus, the only info I can find is a member who wanted the Explorer tails on his Mounty and said they left a gap at the bottom, so im assuming for some reason they wouldn't fit right. That would bug me.

last week when I was at Taylor Auto Salvage... junkyard on telegraph between sibbly and eureka had 2 mountys on their lot with clean taillights this way you can also chop the wire looms... i think they ask something like $20 a side... would not be too much out of your way if you want to try this out

 

[BrianDye]

Ah thanks for letting me know! I might run up and grab them tomorrow if that's the case. Then I can try them out at least and show other people who consider the swap what it looks like.

Would be cool to tint them all red too...we'll see.