rear lights, 3 or 4 wires???

Question

I have to put new non standard rear lights in my VW rabbit since the old lights are all banged up and replacements are getting harder to get. I have done this on another brand of car and apprently there the rear light had a ground wire, one wire for the tail light and one wire for brake/flasher combo, so 3 wires was all I needed and the modification went flawless.

The VW has two separate rear lights, one has the tail and brake light and the other the flasher only and I am having difficulties thinking about how to change the wiring so I can use my new 3 wire rear light assembly as opposed to a 4 wire assembly.

When I connect the flasher wire and the brake light wire together both turn lights, left and right, go on when I want to turn, which should confuse everybody behind me...

Any advice???

Uwe

Dave Plowman · Accepted Answer

If it uses the same bulb for both stop light and flasher, then it has arelay switching unit to allow this. If you wish to convert to separatestop and flashers, you'll need to re-wire from that relay.

Duncan Wood · Answer

YOu might want to try  there's more americans hanging out there.

Mike G · Answer

Isn't Rabbit simply the US name for our Golf?Mike.

Dave Plowman · Answer

Or  - some early uk cars flashed the brake lights toofor indicators. The principle's the same.

Guy King · Answer

The message from Uwe  contains these words:Sounds like a bad earth, but with these US flavoured conversions who can tell.

Guy King · Answer

The message from "Mike G"  contains these words:Yes and no. The US has strange tastes and fashions in rear lighting.

Dave Plowman · Answer

They used to share the stoplamp as a flasher. This involves them being fed via a relay routing unit. Some 50s UK cars used the same arrangement before amber flashers became mandatory. The white sidelights used dual filament bulbs as the sidelight wasn't bright enough. MG Magnette ZB Varitones had this arrangement.

rear lights, 3 or 4 wires???

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