Adding an extra brake light on an early model, need some help

[2mAn]

T'd the extra light in and it still popped the 7.5A fuse. took it apart and moved on with my life ...

[2mAn]

edit: just to be clear on why I wanted to add a brake light, it wasnt a preference of a running or a braking light, just more light so the girl texting in her SUV doesnt ram me. I was trying to keep it simple by using whats there, but I like pandas idea so Im rolling with it...

I will be at the garage later and will mess with it. I will report back!... and I wont change the fuses

[AndrewBird]

DO NOT SWAP IN HIGHER AMPERAGE FUSES!

Fuses are there to protect the WIRING, not the bulbs. With the wrong fuse, if something ever shorts, the wiring will heat up and melt before you blow a fuse and could start a fire.

You say you wanted to add an extra brake light, but the side markers don't come on with the brakes, they come on with the tail lights (headlights). I would do what panda said and splice into the brake light wire. You shouldn't need a bigger fuse as the bulb don't pull much amperage. Stick with the stock rating.

[pandaboo911]

Just T into the brake light wire. With 4 bulbs vs 2 you might blow the brake light fuse so just swap in a higher amperage fuse.

[2mAn]

What you should do is splice the fog bulb into the light that comes on with your brakes. Giving you 2x brightness when stepping on the brakes.

I like this idea. Can I just use the wiring I already have and splice it directly or do I have to get fancy?

by now you're seeing that I really am stupid when it comes to wiring

[pandaboo911]

Adding an extra brake light on an early model, need some help

The fog lights are quite a bit brighter than the standard parking lights just so you know. The normal brake lights have an extra plastic lens to dim them.
This will make it look like you are braking all the time, and hard to tell when you actually are since the lights will be just as bright while not braking.

I have my rear fogs wired to the fog light button. I've had a guy tell me that my brake lights are stuck on. I realized after that the fogs were on. I've since removed the bulbs.

The euro fog light is just like driving with your brake lights fully lit.
Imo it would look stupid with 2 different brightness bulbs if you get what I'm saying. It's also pretty unsafe

What you should do is splice the fog bulb into the light that comes on with your brakes. Giving you 2x brightness when stepping on the brakes.

[2mAn]

**I copied this from my build thread just in case others have considered doing this and someone actually uses the search function when they get stumped like I am...**

A while ago I noticed some extra wiring near the taillights and was ready to hack it off, but thought I should try and figure out what it is first. Later on, when my brain was thinking, I realized it was the wiring to the sidemarker lights that our cars come with in North America. Since my car has those lights shaved in the back the wiring was just chilling in the trunk. In Europe, they have these things called fog lights, IN THE BACK!??!? and since we dont get cool stuff in North America, the taillight bulb trays has a vacant spot. HMMMM....

My idea was to use the wiring from these side markers and run them to the vacant spot on the bulb trays, and the pictures show you my progress. Most of this was fairly easy, except for the metal, spring-like piece that you push the bulb against, but luckily I had an extra bulb tray from an old mk1 jetta that I stole these from.

TLDR I wanted to add a second running, brake light



nekkid


the important piece


wiring done.


"final product"



quotes are because it didnt really work.

It kept popping the 7.5A fuse, thought it was a bad ground then sort of realized what was going on and thought I would try a 10A, 15A and even a 20A fuse and it popped all of them. So, I disconnected the extra light and made sure it was all functioning normally so I can attack this again when more knowledge.

I think the problem is that the sidemarker bulb is a little tiny one and Im trying to power a secondary bigger light.

Any ideas on how I can get this to work?