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Tail Light LED Retrofit 1, Page Updated January 27, 2008

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Project Completed in July-November 2006

Here is one of the biggest projects I have embarked on regarding this car: converting some cheap, leaky APC taillights for the 7th gen Corolla to some custom LED, luxurious, expensive, and still leaky taillights like was never seen before. I tried enough of the drop in LED bulbs to know that the only way I would be happy was if I did it all myself. After considering my options for taillights, I decided to go with the APC ones. I had the old aftermarket taillights still on my car already, but I did not like them anymore. I realized how ricey they were, and they did not match the clean style of the car. The APC ones, however, were perfect. They were simple and clean, only having two red circles with a bar underneath for the turn signal and back up light. I even drove around with the APC ones for a while without being disappointed, except that they leaked like crazy. Plus, they had incredible potential for modifying, especially because they had two identical, almost full circles.

I had several goals for this project. The most obvious one was to have LEDs for the brake lights, running lights, and turn signals. But since I could do whatever I wanted with them, I wanted to make sure that I would not regret anything. Here are my goals:

1) To have red light visible from the side of the car. The only problem with the taillights originally was that they did not come with any red light out of the sides. To be safe, I needed to be seen from the side.

2) To have separate running lights and brake lights, like most Volvos and older BMWs. This way, at night, instead of the red lights simply getting brighter to show braking (like the stock Corollas do), I wanted the brake light to be either full brightness or off. This way, the brake light has more contrast, and is more obvious/visible, and is safer. Also, this is a lot easier to wire up!

3) I wanted my brake lights to match my third brake light. After my third brake light mod (see page 12), which was rectangular in shape, circle brake lights in my taillights did not look good. I wanted to have one rectangle on each side for a brake light, and the APC taillights had a nice space for it: where the turn signal originally was.

4) I wanted circular rings of LEDs for my running/parking light. These taillights were perfect for that, since they had two identical circles on each side.

5) I wanted white turn signals that were original, so I put them inside the red running light rings. Never seen that before!

6) I wanted the lights to have no red in them. LEDs make that easy.

7) I wanted the red running light circles to be located at the top of the taillights, not the bottom. On all stock 7th gen Corollas, the red lights are underneath the turn signals. But I did not like how low this made it look, since the taillights are very low on the car to begin with. I always thought that the red lights should have been on the top to make the taillights look higher off the ground at night, and so that is what I did. I must say that I was right, and it looks much better with the taillights appearing higher up on the back of the car. If this makes any sense at all.

8) I wanted a really bright back up light, since the stock ones were so dim. Of course, I wanted everything to be bright.

9) I wanted to be able to use the wiring harness that came with the lights, even if it meant that I had to switch some wires around.

So I had to figure out where I was going to get all of this stuff. I used the same type of LEDs that I used in my mirrors, except they were of course red. I used the same panels of red LEDs in my third brake light from superbrightleds.com for my brake lights. I used the jumbo light fixtures from autolumination.com for turn signals.

The project started out bad, for I broke both of the lenses when I took them off. I used a hairdryer to melt the glue holding the lens in, but the glue was not melted enough all the way around for it to all come off at once. One was only broken some around the edges, but the other lens broke in half. Oh well, the taillights would still be cooler than anything, right? As you can guess, the taillights still leak a little today. Anyway, I took the lenses off, including the red ones with the reflectors. I was not going to use the red lenses again.

I started with the red rings. I again used cardboard cereal boxes to mount the LEDs to, just like in my mirrors. I painted one side silver, and poked the LEDs through after marking where each one would go so that the turn signal fit in the middle and the entire piece fit in the light. I soldered a resistor to each LED and connected everything. See page 16 for details and pics on this part.

Here is a picture of the taillight taken apart with the red rings in place to see how well they fit.

Perfect fit! Next, I fashioned the red sidelight out of 6 of the red LEDs in a tight line. There was a perfect spot for it right next to where the brake light was going to go, since there was an opening out the side, and there was a moisture vent there that I could run the wire through, which I did. You can see the sidelight in it's opening in the picture above.

Next was the turn signal that would go in the middle of the red rings. Here are some pictures from autolumination.com of what they USED to look like:

Unfortunately, they were not anywhere near bright enough, although they looked nice enough. The only thing to do was to replace the LEDs, and the only way to do that was to cut off the lens with my Dremel tool. After doing this, I took out the LEDs in the outermost ring. I had some other LED bulbs that I was not using anymore, and those LEDs ended up in the light fixture instead. Fortunately, the LEDs worked with the same resistors and everything.

They worked really well, and the bright LED circle could be seen from far away. So my turn signals ended up being small circles. I then painted them silver and epoxied them into the middle of the red cardboard rings, and they fit perfectly.

Last was the brake lights. I did not have to cut these panels in half (like in my other projects with these), because they already fit. All I had to do was paint them silver and epoxy them together using more coat hangers.

I then made sure that each of the light components had the correct socket. The brake lights got 1156 sockets, since they only needed one connection. The running light/turn signals got a 1157 connector, one connection for each with a common ground. The sidelights wired straight to the circles, with the wires running through the moisture vents. Here is a pic of the pieces completed, and then installed with Epoxy.

Next was the wiring harness, which I just had to switch some wires on. It was really easy, since all the 1156 and 1157 connectors were in the same places. All I had to do was switch the brake light and turn signal wires. But I also added a relay on each side to turn the turn signals on with the backup light to give me even more light when backing up. See picture.

I then used clear caulk and packing tape to "seal" the lights. at least they don't fill up with water anymore, they only fog sometimes.

Finished product.

On to the comparisons! Here are pictures comparing my new LED taillights to my old aftermarket lights with drop in LED bulbs.

Parking lights
Brake lights: Now they are all rectangles.
Turn signals: Yes there are two turn signal rings on each side.
Back up lights

Here are some new pics comparing the new taillights with the stock lights. The new lights are brighter in every pic.

And some random pics:

I am not using these tail lights anymore.

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Don't forget that if you have any help, advice, comments, criticisms, or questions about my car and future mods, please sign my Guest book!

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Table of Contents

My Corolla Today
Page 1: Current Exterior
Page 2: Current Interior
Page 3: Current Engine
Page 4: Current Audio

Corolla Time Lines
Page 5: Phase Time Line
Page 6: Detailed Time Line

Other Stuff
Page 7: Photoshop
Page 8: Look at this page before you buy replacement LED bulbs
Page 9: Details on my current and future mods
Page 10: For Sale!

DIYs and Project Write-ups
Page 11: Bumper light LED retrofit 1
Page 12: Third Brake light LED retrofit
Page 13: Diablo Mirror LED replacement
Page 14: Taillight LED Retrofit 1
Page 15: High Beam DRL Mod
Page 16: Bumper Light LED Retrofit 2, PLUS detailed description of how I do LED mods
Page 17: Painting preparation (details on my fenders, grille, trunk, and Bondo)
Page 18: Side marker LED retrofit and installation
Page 19: HID fog lights and headlights
Page 20: Interior painting, modifications, and exterior trim painting
Page 21: Installing Halo/LED/Projector headlights
Page 22: Mirror cover LED replacement
Page 23: Installing a new stereo and speakers
Page 24: Body kit installation, front end conversion, and other body work for round 2
Page 25: Retrofitting LEDs into my third mirrors and front turn signals
Page 26: Putting interior LEDs behind the dash and in all the buttons and all over the interior
Page 27: LED tail light retrofit 2 and baking your lights in the oven to remove the lens