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Context: My car is an '06 Beck. While the car is a solid build with a Subaru powerplant, the turn signals and brake lights are conical and not visually correct so I've opted to replace them with the correct flat-style fixtures currently sold by Beck...

So, I bought the light kit for the front and rear taillights from Beck. And quite frankly, it's the best way to go. I ordered the kit from another vendor and they put me off for MONTHS! Beck had the lights to me within a week!  I digress... the kit comes without instruction and I figured out the installation of the front turn signals pretty quickly... it actually took me longer to build up the nerve to enlarge the holes in the front than the installation itself. LOL... Now to the rear!

My car specifically has two bulbs in each housing. One two-filament bulb is for the turn signal and brake lights and the second bulb is the "city lights." ie: the lights that burn in the rear when the headlights are on... The headlight "buckets" that I received have no provision for these running lights and the bulbs provided in the kit are 2 filament bulbs. ie: taillights and blinker... am I supposed to drill holes in these fixtures and reuse old running lights insert? How else would one get lights in the rear without a 3rd bulb? Obviously, I have separate wiring for these bulbs.  Am I missing something? Before I start making holes, is there any other way? I'm hoping to finish the installation over the weekend so any help would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks!!!

Last edited by Matt McNeil
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Spyders usually only have one turn/park fixture on each corner. Some guys wire the "city lights" in the headlight bucket as park bulbs either alone or with the smaller front lights. I didn't.

The clear ones in front use amber bulbs, park and turn. I used a 3157 amber LED with appropriate socket. If you use LED lights you can easily change to an LED flasher. I found a 2 wire(yours may be 3) model by Audew on Amazon for 6 bucks.

The rear light assemblies use the same bulb but clear. I got the bulbs right at Autozone.

There are two ways to tackle the wiring. Most guys use a trailer converter, the kind that you use to wire a european tow vehicle to the single taillights on a trailer. 5 wires in, 4 wires out: blue=stop, yellow=left turn, green=right turn, brown=park, and white=ground. There are 4 wires out, the same colors all, excepting the blue. Easy peasy. If you go this way, buy a good one, they used to have a tendency to burn out. I believe this tendency may be alleviated by using LED bulbs, as they draw less current.

I did it another way. I used 4 relays for the turn/stop function. Two relays are wired to the brake switch and rear bulbs and the other two relays to the front turn bulbs. If you search VW turn signal wiring you can find schematics.

Either way you do it, I recommend you include a 4-wire trailer pigtail near the clamshell hinges for easy on-off. I've been doing it this way for twenty years and it works very well.

I'm sure there are other ways to do it.

In some countries they REQUIRE 2 separate fixtures for the taillights, and usually the stop lights are red and the turn signals are amber. Easy to do with a Speedster, either the beehives or the teardrop lights have provision for separate bulbs. Not so in a Spyder.

Danny has you covered.  We do most with the trailer box as he mentioned.  Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/56130-N...tive%2C87&sr=1-4



One quick tip, in case the little note wasn't put in with the lights, The 3 tabs on the lens and the 3 mounting bolt heads (that hold the base to the car) make a triangle.  Make sure you install the lens with the triangle of tabs opposite of the triangle of bolt heads, otherwise the bolt heads can hot the tabs as it "clicks" together and break them off.  Hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the tips! I had no idea that trailer module was a thing or I would have probably headed in that direction! I bit the bullet and just drilled a couple of holes in the buckets and replicated the existing setup since I was already on my knees and coved in fiberglass dust over the weekend. LOL... Works as expected and definitely looks better than the cone lights that were there!

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