harry.m1byt
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3rd Brake light -done!
« on: Jan 15th, 2007, 7:44pm » |
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Hi,
As I struggeled a bit with this, I'll document it for anyone else thinking of having a go.
My car was ready wired for the 3rd brake light, others may not be. Removing the off side rear speaker (one bolt from inside the boot, plus unplugging), revealed a black tape covered loop of wire in a plastic clip tucked away in a ledge of the metal panel - as seen looking towards the rear of the car through the hole vacated by the speaker. Remove the sponge padding, pull whichever end of the loop feels free - at the end should be the two spade connectors for the light.
The fixing holes for the light are M6. Mine were clogged up with paint, so I had to run a tap through them. You can just see them looking up laid on your back in the boot, in an oval shaped hole in the steel panel - two welded in place M6 nuts.
Once the threads are cleaned out, find a long (3") M6 bolt and screw this in, hard into the parcel shelf so it makes a mark for drilling purposes - once the shelf is off.
Undo the remaining speaker, then remove the rear parcel shelf. This later item caused me quite some grief trying to get it out. It is held by 3x of those plastic corrugated button type catches along the front and 5x plastic hooks at the rear.
Drop the rear seats down, lift the short flap of parcel shelf up and insert your fingers between steel panel and the shelf and prise up alongside each of the three front fixings. Lift the edge nearest to you in the middle and extract first one flap end then the other from behind the seat sides.
The plastic fixing hooks on the rear most edge are tricky to unhook, I broke two trying to get the shelf out. Once out on the bench, drill the two fixing holes (9mm)in the shelf where you marked it with the long M6 bolts. Drop a couple of short bolts through to locate the lights base. Now mark out the shelf to be cut with a jigsaw. Just a slot wide enough to clear the two spade connectors where they protrude is enough, but I cut it a bit fore and aft too, so it was like a T [1].
[1] The top part of the light seemed a bit tricky to slide on and off the ratchet catch, so I drilled a couple of tiny holes in the free end of the ratchet plate and fitted a loose tiewrap to enable it to be pulled down from in the boot. Pulled down the main part of tha lamp slides off quite easily, to enable lamps to be changed. The hole in the parcel shelf needs to be made a little longer to accomodate the tiewrap.
Mine will be coming off again soon, to change the filament lamps for LED's - once I get a round tuit.
Oh, and thanks for the help and advice received - probably if I attempted another I could manage it in an hour or so.
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