Has anyone installed this on the coupe' yet. I was looking for some detailed information on which one and how to do it.

Thanks in advance.

 

Interested here, as well. How much has to come apart to get to the third brake light?

 

Good question, I had one on my R53 and would like to do it also on my

R58.

 

me 4....

 

anyone... anyone ... Bueller... Bueller

 

There is some info in this thread. https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-pulsar-2.html

 

I installed one on a convertible. I think its easier on a coupe because there is more room to do get in there. My daughter followed me and said to remove it because it was so annoying. I think that's the point.

 

I guess the question I have is how to get the back panel off so that you can get to the brake light.

 

I have one I'm planning on putting in my Coupe when it gets here. If no one has put anything up I will will gladly give whatever information is needed. Hope you can wait a month.

 

ya I guess I can .. I will see what I can find as well .. so either way ..

 

I did this to my coupe a few weeks ago.

The first thing to do is to remove the rear panel of course. It can be a PITA, but the way I did it was to remove the 2 screws in the handles and the other 2 screws on the upper pillars of the hatch. Once the four screws are removed, I started prying the panel off near the rear lock at the bottom of the panel. There are 4 clips along the bottom that need to be popped out. Pry directly down from the clips and they should come off rather easily.

The other clips are more a PITA since they are buried inside the panel, but you can see the 2 outer clips by peeking from the back of the panel you already pried open. Using a panel tool or a long flat head screw driver (taped up), I reached in and popped the two clips I could see (one on each side right below the window). From there just grab the panel and pull straight down and it should pop off. If any of the white clips stay in the car, remove them carefully (as to not break them) and insert them back into the panel so when you go back to installing it, the clips just pop back into the holes.

Once the panel is off (and I didn't remove the upper pillars, I just pulled them out and away to get the rear panel to come out), set it aside. NOTE: be careful of the exposed metal on the rear hatch. The cutouts are super slim metal and will cut you without you knowing. Be cautious and you will be fine, or wear gloves... I shoved a rag into one of the cutout and anytime I needed to close the hatch a bit, I just grabbed where the rag was.

Once the panel is removed your hatch should look like this:



You will see the wire harness wrapped in fabric tape in the center. If you look up into the opening where the wires go, you will see that one of the two wires goes to the 3rd brake light. Find which wire that is.




You should be able to pull out some slack on the wire from the opening to allow for better access.




You need to cut into the fabric sheath to expose the wires. The wire colors are yellow and brown. before doing this, I would recommend cutting the ziptie to the left to allow you to separate the wires more easily. I didn't do this until the next step, but it would have made it easier.




Next, cut the wires back about 1/4" and twist the copper. You may find you will need to cut more of the fabric sheath off the wires to give you a bit more slack to work with.




Next wire up the pulsar. Make sure all your copper wires make it into the terminals on the pulsar and they are not frayed, which could short the wires. Brown to positive, Yellow to Negative. (I originally wired this up incorrectly and when I tested it, the brake light worked like normal (like bypassing the pulsar). So I swapped the wires and all worked well).




At this point you can work out how you want to mount it, my original thought was to use the 2-sided tape provided on the back of the pulsar and just stick it to the metal of the hatch like this.





But after thinking about how I live in Vegas and the 116 deg summers might melt that away (maybe it won't, but just thinking it might), I decided instead to wrap the entire pulsar in foam packing sheets (1/8" thick foam) that I wrapped around the pulsar twice. I secured the foam with zip ties. I then secured it inside the cutout where the wires go into the hatch near the 3rd brake light. (Sorry no picture). My thought was the foam would prevent any rattling from the board inside the hatch, and after several weeks of driving and opening and closing the hatch, it is firmly secured with no rattle.

Last bit is to put a new ziptie in the cable restraint you cut off earlier and replace the rear panels. When replacing the rear panel, start at the top near the glass and ensure the upper pillars overlap the rear panel, or else you will have to remove it again and realign it.

The entire process took me less than an hour to do.

-Z

 

Zcast, you rock!!! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this how-to!

 

Mine was backwards. I had to do brown to negative and yellow to positive.

 

Anyone have a pic of an installed third brake light taken with the brake on?

 

Huh?

 

Maybe I'm confused. What is a flashing third light? Is it simply the third break light modified to flash when the four-ways are on?

Perhaps I didn't understand the comment about the light being too bright.

 

Try this ->

 

Thanks!

 

It is a small board that ties into the wires going to the third brake light. You can position two jumpers on the board. One jumper allows for short or long burst flashing and the other jumper has a smart brake feature which is displayed on that YouTube link. It prevents the flashing in stop and go traffic. I removed the smart brake jumper on mine so it flashes every time I hit the brakes.

 

Great Write up! Putting this on this weekend