Flashing 3rd Brake Light on a Tiger

I have been looking for an example of a 3rd brake light suitable for my Sunbeam Tiger. My wife and I have been in a serious rear end collision and know that we might be dead if we hadn’t had headrests. My Tiger does not have headrests and the 3rd brake light would be a step closer to preventing another rear end collision. Apparently not many 3rd brake lights have been installed on these cars because I was unable to find a photo of such. There are universal mount units available, but most are on a stem and probably fragile during the soft top manipulation. While observing other vehicles on the road, I found that almost all have the 3rd brake light inside the rear window or embedded in the shape of the trunk or hatch. I finally found that a Chevy Blazer has an externally mounted 3rd brake light! I Googled and found aftermarket 3rd brake lights available for this Blazer. FYI the same part number is listed to fit 95-04 Chevy Full-size Blazer /95-99 Tahoe /92-99 Suburban /92-99 GMC Yukon/ 02-05 Hummer H2 (4-door models Only). Www.xtralights.com offers it in red, smoke, or chrome for $72.95 + shipping. They are LED. I opted for the chrome, #11-CD00LEDG2AC, as it would be mounted between my trunk hinges. It mounts on a very slight radius with self adhesive tape and a sheet metal screw at each end. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the radius of the light, along the mounting surface, was immeasurably close to the same as my trunk surface! There are small locating tabs that fit in the OE installation, probably for assembly purposes. I broke those off because they don’t seem necessary and I didn’t want to cut those holes in my trunk. I also included a Blinking Smart Stop Delay Module that flashes this 3rd brake light when brakes are first applied. I purchased mine from www.kahtec.com. My #301-2003-11F only cost $24.95 + shipping and works great! I enclosed this module inside a small plastic “project box” from Radio Shack.
I hope you find this interesting. I'm very pleased with the added safety of letting the guy behind me know I'm slowing down.

I like it. It's definately going on my to-do list. BTW, the modern wiring harnesses available from Rebel include a 3rd brake light circuit. Thanks for sharing.

Regards,
John.

Great idea......I am thinking on the back side of my roll bar would be better for my car as no holes will need to be drilled. You could see it top up, down and with hard top on.

Would be a big glow in the car at night though.....no bother, the line-lock red light is bright too

Auto parts store

I agree with Duke. Most parts stores have the small strip with self adhesive.
What I bought has two strips of lights one for my CB160 and one to be stuck to rollbar.
About 7 or 8 bucks as I recall for two.
If the top ever gets put up I am sure the glow will be minimal to driver. Drilling holes always seems like a bad idea .

As always the higher the better, another good reason for roll bar mounting, plus on my to do list is a head rest built in to the back section on the Autopower industries "show bar."

the_tool_man said:

I like it. It's definately going on my to-do list. BTW, the modern wiring harnesses available from Rebel include a 3rd brake light circuit. Thanks for sharing.

Regards,
John.

Click to expand...

I have that new Rebel, (Pete's Performance Wiring), wiring harness in my Tiger already. I did a story with photos in this forum.

I like the 3rd light....but I also like the exhaust tips as they are the only ones I've seen like mine ;-)

Bad pic, but

It,s all I had. I had to get a third brake light when I first registered it here in NZ. All I could find was big ugly bulky lights that stuck to the rear window.

Then I spotted a nice looking one on a 2002 Audi TT. So I bought one. It is very similar in shape to the one you have just fitted but was ten times the price .

Where i had it there would have interfered with the hard top. I will have to see if it will live there if I move it back to the edge, once I get the hard top back from the tin basher. I would prefer it there than on the boot.

Good idea and clean install. I think if I did this I would try and mount it to the roll bar I have not installed yet.

I added this LED strip to my rollbar for my 3rd brakelight, at least 20 years ago. The light came in a housing that I removed & just slit the padding on the bar enough to double-stick tape the light into.

On another note I brought up the question of LED tail lights a while back, but few seemed interested. One thing I could do is converting our top turn-signal top tail light to a dual element bulb as others have done. Others suggested chroming the tail light reflectors for added brightness.

ToyTrainGuy said:

I added this LED strip to my rollbar for my 3rd brakelight, at least 20 years ago. The light came in a housing that I removed & just slit the padding on the bar enough to double-stick tape the light into.

On another note I brought up the question of LED tail lights a while back, but few seemed interested. One thing I could do is converting our top turn-signal top tail light to a dual element bulb as others have done. Others suggested chroming the tail light reflectors for added brightness.

Click to expand...

I had already swapped the turn signal light wires with the brake light wires to get the brake lights up top for added safety. I just switched them back now that I have the "flashing 3rd brake light".

ramseyt said:

I had already swapped the turn signal light wires with the brake light wires to get the brake lights up top for added safety. I just switched them back now that I have the "flashing 3rd brake light".

Click to expand...

The mod I was referring to was to add another running light for increased rear visibility by making the top turn signal a dual-element bulb. I am just as much concerned about the normal rear visibility with those two little taillights as I am about the brake lights. Still, your idea of the blinking 3rd brakelight is a great one, I sure notice them on motorcycles when I see them.

Dual Tail Light Bulbs

ToyTrainGuy said:

I added this LED strip to my rollbar for my 3rd brakelight, at least 20 years ago. The light came in a housing that I removed & just slit the padding on the bar enough to double-stick tape the light into.

On another note I brought up the question of LED tail lights a while back, but few seemed interested. One thing I could do is converting our top turn-signal top tail light to a dual element bulb as others have done. Others suggested chroming the tail light reflectors for added brightness.

Click to expand...

That's a good idea. We could find an extra set of dual element sockets and enlarge the single element socket hole in the light housing to except the other double. All we'd have to do then is jumper the second tail light bulb from the first.

Could my tail light assemblies be up side down?

ToyTrainGuy said:

I added this LED strip to my rollbar for my 3rd brakelight, at least 20 years ago. The light came in a housing that I removed & just slit the padding on the bar enough to double-stick tape the light into.

On another note I brought up the question of LED tail lights a while back, but few seemed interested. One thing I could do is converting our top turn-signal top tail light to a dual element bulb as others have done. Others suggested chroming the tail light reflectors for added brightness.

Click to expand...

You mentioned converting the top tail light bulb to dual element. Mine is already a dual element but the bottom is a single element. Could my tail light assemblies be up side down?

The indicator lights are at the top.. the brake lights are at the bottom.

as a side question.. cars that have the tail light upside down often have the switches in the dash upside down to.. are yours down to turn things on? or up?

My switches were are up when off.

michael-king said:

The indicator lights are at the top.. the brake lights are at the bottom.

as a side question.. cars that have the tail light upside down often have the switches in the dash upside down to.. are yours down to turn things on? or up?

Click to expand...

Ha! You have a good memory. I learned in a previous dicussion that my switches were up side down. As a result I changed them to be up when off, down when on.