Thank for you this nice write-up and photos. Looks very neat. I will add this to the mod project next month. Got to finish installing the shocks and suspension from 4Wheelonline onto the Wrangler before we can clear the garage.I really didn't like how ugly the reflectors on the back bumper looked.
So I took one of them off to find the part number.
bk21-515b0-aa. So I googled it.
It turns out that the part number is very similar to what is used on the Ford Transit van.
So I went looking for an LED version and came up with this:
2x LED Rear Bumper Reflectors Brake Light for Ford Transit Van
So using PosiTaps, I replaced the reflectors with these lights.
They are two stage brightness. So I hooked up the dim output to the tail light halo lights and the bright output to the rear brake lights.
At first, I didn't hook up the dim output wires because I thought it might be confusing to people at night that I was braking. But I changed my mind yesterday and hooked them up and I think it's safer at night since the back of the truck is pretty dark at night and these lights fix that.
There are a lot of options on Ebay Motors for these, some blacked out, some with less LEDs, amber, red, white, etc. The ones I got are red reflectors with 24 LEDs. Btw, the wires on the ones I got were just long enough. So you don't need to splice longer wires in. I secured the slack with zip ties to help prevent vibration wear.
INSTALL:
Remove trim and rear tail lights. I ran solder wire from the tail lights down into the bumper and out to the holes in the reflector area. I drilled a large hole behind each reflector light to accommodate the wire, taped the wire to the solder with electrical tape, and pulled the solder/wire back up through the bumper and into the tail light area. I then tapped the wires with the positaps and put everything back together. The positaps I used are the smallest I could find and are meant for tapping 18 g wire. The wires in the taillight are 20g for the ground and 22 for the other hot wires. But they still work. You just have to do it carefully.
Fair warning that the wires for the left and right tail light plugs aren't in the same position in the plugs for some unknown reason. I really don't know why Ford did that, but whatever. So test ahead of time before tapping. I'm glad I tested, otherwise I would have tapped the wrong wire.
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