Escalade 3rd brake light upgrade.

I know Putco makes this, but at $350 I couldnt bring myself to buy it after spending $175 on the spoiler/light and another $60 on paint supplies.... I couldnt justify spending almost $600 total on a 3rd brake light.
But I had everything on hand to do it my self and some free time today, so that what i did.

cut open the back of the light (its wrapped in painters tape so i didnt scratch the lens)


you can see the holes for the LEDs and the and the back of the unused reflectors



Drill out the back of the reflectors



the plastic had to be ground down so the LEDS would sit closer to the reflector, or else the middle ones would sit close and the one I put on the sides would sit further back and probably not look right


Hot glue Lumiled superflux in place

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then its soldering time, no regulator, series of five LEDs, running at about 50 mA



need some better pics, these were all take w/ my phone. will get some better ones w/ a camera when mounted on my truck

Looks good man. Nice work can't wait to see it on the truck.

Can you link up the parts used? I would like to do this.

Do you offer a service for this mod?

Love it!!!

Nice. like to see it on the truck.

Killer looks way better than how the stock lights up.


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looks nice. some day and nice braking shots would be sweet...

though.. dont know if this would look like but what if you had it so
brakes = all light
then turn signals = half blink...

would need an wave rectifier.. for the puls...

but this could look sweet

looks sick as it is

SuperchargedSS said:

Can you link up the parts used? I would like to do this.

Do you offer a service for this mod?

Love it!!!

Click to expand...

no service offered, but happy to assist anyone who wants to do it. parts are pretty straight foward.
46 red Lumiled superflux LEDs, part # HPWT-DD02, similar to part# HPWT-DH00-G4000 DATA SHEET these are what are used in a lot of OEM applications, though i believe they use the red-orange ones in OEM applications. I bought a bunch a few years ago for a few tailight LED retros for for around $0.14/pc. they can be bought her for a bit more http://www.ledcar.com/products/superflux-leds/, sometimes a a few tubes will come up on ebay for cheaper.

Any LED can be used, search for Pirahna or superflux LED on ebay and you will find plenty of results. I prefer the Lumiled superflux because they are made by HP and are the best quality. other manufactures i cant be so sure of, and in a tailight retro where the housing has to be cut open and glued shut, saving $0.30 an LED isnt worth having to go back in to replace a burnt out LED.

I used nine sets of 5 LEDs (Vf 2.5v, If 70ma) in series with a 39 ohm resistor, then a single led wired to a 220 ohm resistor ( 46 LEDS total). that works out to a little more that 50 mA per LED when supplied w/ 14.5 volts.

but it could be configured in many different ways, I used those b/c i had those resistors on hand, and if you use different LEDs you will need to figure out the resistors for those particular LEDs foward voltage an Current draw. google LED calculator to help with resistor sizing.

Aside from those parts you will need some wire, solder, Hot glue gun, tube of silicone, dremmel with cut off wheel and 1/4 drill bit.

jdpber said:

looks nice. some day and nice braking shots would be sweet...

though.. dont know if this would look like but what if you had it so
brakes = all light
then turn signals = half blink...

would need an wave rectifier.. for the puls...

but this could look sweet

looks sick as it is

Click to expand...

Didnt think about that, would be cool. But am pretty happy with the results and that it installs like an OEM part in that it used the original pigtail and plug

Looks awesome and + points for execution (if we had rep points). I would not do turn signals in third brake light, it looks horrible

some more cell phone pics, dont feel like locating and charging my camera right now

Up close of some of the leds, you can see here why I ground down the back of the reflectors, If I didnt the leds would sit an little more that an 1/8" back and would look different than the ones that were already there


and some day pics in direct sunshine

This looks freakin awesome...I think you should start a service for these and fix me one first lol....seriously though, I would pay you to do this for me...