GCS/AR rear fog light rewire
 

I have an AR rear fog light that i need to rewire how the brake light works. I tried to get the light apart but it looks like it has some kind of glue all the way around the shell and i'm afraid it may break if i pry at it too much. Has anyone else tried rewiring an AR fog light before?

I believe some of the vendors have rewired them and they may be able to provide some input on this as well but i'm not sure how to tag them. @FT-86 SpeedFactory and @LED86

Heya mate, I get your email but ill answer here so others can see to for future reference.
The AR rear fogs dont need to be rewired as the functions are all wired individually already. You have connectors for the centre fog and reverse lights and then from memory you have green wire = ground, yellow wire = center flash, red wire = light bar.

In your email you said.
My first question would be did you install it or have someone else do it?
To me it sounds like someone has wired the running light and rear fog connector together probably because they FRS doesnt have a centre fog light so they have just fused together.

You can also refer to this install guide I did.
http://led86.com.au/img/cms/guides/A...ll%20Guide.pdf

I installed it myself. It seems that my rear fog is wired differently than the ar fogs you sell. I have a wire that is just for the brake light. It flashes on activation and then stays on after flashing. That works as expected. The wire for the running light is also connected to the brake light without the flashing. So the running light and brake light are on at the same time.

The retailer I bought it from has told me they didn't modify it so the AR fogs they have must have been wired differently from manufacturing or they are not true AR fogs but they came in an AR box. This is possible since they are not advertised on their website as AR but as GCS rear fog light.

Do you have any insight into how i could get the fog light open to modify the wiring in it? The glue seems to break loose on the long sides pretty well and i'm not sure if it would soften with heat and come loose easier? I'm a little scared because I broke off a corner of the lens that is behind the bumper and is just extra plastic but I don't want to break any more of it if i can help it.

As said, it sounds like the parking brake and running lamp wires are spiced together. Just separate them and connect the running lamp wire to the running lamp wire behind the taillight. Im not sure what kind of wiring harness your setup came with but if its not like the one in the pdf proved then just run an additional wire from the new light to the tail lights splice it, connected to the running lights on either side, and done.

No need to open anything.

That's what i figured too. I just went back and checked all of my wiring to make sure it is correct. My harness i have is 3 separate wires. A black for ground, a yellow for brake, and red for running lights. They are hooked correctly to the running a brake light wires off the tail light harness.

The difference between mine and the guide for the one from led86 is that mine doesn't have the plug for the fog light.

I did some searching through retailers to find one that functions like mine does and even though i didn't buy from here the video on this page shows how mine is functioning. Perhaps it was requested to by wired differently due to the US spec not having the fog light harness.

http://www.86speed.com/products/v2-r...ing-brake.html

I'm thinking AR possibly manufactured a specific type for the USA market due to the lack of rear fog plug and that's what you have. So maybe it is wired internally. From memory I don't think you can take them apart but ill take a look at some stock when I get a chance.

Yea judging by that video your light is functioning as it should be if it were that exact model, that sucks.

Grab a heat gun or hair dryer and a buddy to help you loosen the glue while you try to pry it apart? Make sure you didnt forget any screws on the back of it while trying to pry. And FYI this is just my guessing, since I don't have that specific light.

If you can get it open, post up pics and maybe we can help figure out how to rewire it internally. Theres a bunch of guys who have rewired the Valentis internally to have the running light independent of the brake light.

Thanks all. I'll see what I can do to get it apart and let y'all know if I have any luck.

Well i have succeeded. After 3 hours with a hair dryer I was able to get the light apart. Once it was apart the modification needed was to just remove the jumper wire that was added.

The AR light is probably the best built rear fog light available today. It is assembled similar to a headlight with a thick ring of sealant around the outside where the two shells go together. Using a hair dryer seems to soften the sealant but it has a high melting point so it never became really goey. It stretched a little and i was able to cut it as it stretched and eventually it came loose.

From pervious attempts at opening the light I broke two of the corners on the lens but the areas are covered by the bumper and the lens itself is still sealed. I managed to only break one of the tabs that clip the lens together while i worked it apart. This doesn't really matter though since the lens is held together with sealant that becomes rock hard and 10 screws in the back.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xelp8vuv1g...45103.jpg?dl=1

You can see in this image where the jumper was added from the running lights to the brake light triangle
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4urtqnxx6n...45844.jpg?dl=1

All i did to fix it was cut the jumper and trim the excess wire away. I then just wrapped it up "neatly" with electrical tape.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c2aejs9723...29981.jpg?dl=1

Getting the lens back together was a little tricky since the sealant was no longer pliable so back to the hair dryer to slowly work the lens back together and be able to clip it and put the screws back in.

Nice job, glad the internal rewiring was so simple.

Cool, you figured it out.

Did you test it to make sure that the brake light can be powered off only the yellow wire? That may just be an activation circuit for the break light pulse. You may have to run brake light power to that little red wire.

Tested it out works as it should now.