Yesterday I installed rear fog lights from OUTMOTORING.com with the tail/brake light wiring kit from GOMINIGO.com. I also installed the gominigo pulsar to flash the high mounted brake light.

With the instructions it was simple. I did call gominigo since they had (in a previous call) told me I could wire the pulsar in the left light housing area and I did not know which wires to tap into. About an hour later gominigo called back to see if all went well, which it did. I am impressed with the quality and customer service of gomingo and would highly recommend them. Also Outmotoring who gave me a 10% discount for being a new customer.

And I love the new lights which function as tail lights AND brake lights. I have no idea how they work as there are only 2 wires, but they do work.

 

Pictures???

 

Yes, please. I have been wanting to retrofit lights into the fog light areas and was not thinking about taping into the rear lights. I like the idea that they are always on and that they would brighten up when braking. Do I understand the function correctly?

So send pictures and if you can, take shots at dusk or night time so we can see the difference. Thanks for the good intel.

 

Running lights on


Brake lights

Pulsar on 3rd brake light
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1vNhEr5IoM

The entire job took about an hour. The wires for the 3rd brakelight can be accessed in the left taillight housing area.

The lights from outmotoring.com were $58.95
The wiring kit from gominigo.com was $35.00 and worth every penny
The Pulsar kit was $29.99

 

Thanks for stopping by yesterday! The lights look great

So great in fact, I'm going to have to buy me a set now. Don't mind me--just adding to the never ending mod list

 

AustinS you rock! Thanks for posting those photos. I want to do this now.

 

Looking to see if anyone else noticed this before I cut the wrong wire.

It looks like the wires that go to the third brake light change color after the harness conection. I finally found an "all cabrio all years" instruction set from gominigo that led me to the right harness connector in the driver side, left light housing. I think MINI took the black with yellow thin wire and connected it to a purple one.

If anyone has done the pulsar mod on their 09 cabrio...which wire did you cut?

 

I did this mod and am very pleased with the results. I chose to use the Long setting for the Pulsar and kept the smart pulse enabled.

One set back for doing this on the same weekend as the rear fog lights was a change in wire color. I attached the first three photos to orient you, especially if you decide you want to do this mod.

The first photo shows the netted covering around the wires that come from the soft top which houses the thick black and brown wires for the defroster and the thin black/yellow and thin brown wire for the 3rd brake light.

That black/yellow wire stops at the harness. It continues after the harness in a new color...purple. As you read the pulsar light directions about "towards the light" and "towards the harness," this gets reversed as the harness is now between the light and the pulsar's would be location. So you need to think towards the light and to the car. The instructions do say something about towards the front of the vehicle and to the rear, but that can get confusing too.

Second picture is of the light harness deep inside the rear left (USA driver's side) tail light area.

Unplugging the harness is necessary. Just slide your hand in, easier from above by gently folding in the fabric shelf, and pinch the locking tabs and pull out. On my MINI, the thin wires were the bottom two. The lowest wire was the brown ground wire and next to it was the black/yellow going to purple wires.

As you look at the third picture you can see that the wires coming from the harness are Thick brown, thick black, purple, thin brown. Next post I'll submit pictures of the install and pulsar in place.

 

The 4th photo shows how much wire I uncovered and where the pulsar was installed. (Shot taken from tail light opening) To get to the wires and be able to install the pulsar, I highly recommend removing the OEM black tape from the harness back to the gromet/wire holder. I bought "Friction Tape" at Home Depot and used that immediately to retape the larger black and brown wires.

I cut the purple and brown thin wires near the middle but tried to get as far from the harness connector as possible. You have to do this so that the pulsar is reachable for future adjustments. Once I did this, it was obvious that I would not be able to adhere it to the inside panels. I used more Friction Tape and covered the thin purple and brown wires as well as their connections to the Pulsar unit. You can see how they look installed, from tail light perspective, in the 5th photo.

The 6th photo shows the view from inside the boot, through the Fabric access hole. So this is a lateral shot showing where my pulsar unit sits, suspended in air by the wires and tape. Again, its not stuck to the sheet metal due to the tight fit. If I do get the urge to change jumper settings on the Pulsar Unit, I hope to have enough access here without having to unplug the harness connection.

Helpful tools were the automatic wire strippers that cut and pull the wire ends to expose the wire; a small flash light, to see and verify wire colors; and the Friction Tape, which was much easier to handle and better suited for this than the ubiquitous vinyl tape that would have probably unraveled after a while anyway.

Hope this helps. The "all years cabrio instructions" from GoMiniGo do help. BUT the wire color change will throw you off if you don't expect it. Need to remember that doing it this way, the labels on the Pulsar for light and harness can't be taken literally. If you have questions, please let me know by posting or PM me.
Cheers!

 

Very nice write-up, thanks

 

Looks great.

Im going to try one of these Pulsars out probably next week (when it arrives)

http://www.xdponline.com/index.php?m...b8a0532360c7da