AutoCrat
TJ Enthusiast
I ended up not using the export guts. I designed and fabricated my own grounding plate and guts. Same general idea as jscherb, but I went the circuit boards/LED route for the side indicator and license plate lighting. I'm hoping to FINALLY get these finished and installed this spring, since I started the project nearly 3 years ago. But children seem to really eat up most of my free time. I've been keeping track of the build and plan to post a write up when I'm done.
View attachment 495810
View attachment 495811
View attachment 495812
Wow, some “Fab” Fabrication and electric skills right there, unfortunately totally out of my league . You have done an awesome job so far.
My plan is to transfer the grounding plate and guts from export housing into the USA spec housing just to get the license lamp window and then add an extra light tapped into the the power source of export tail lamp so they both illuminate at the same time but somehow avoid the extra illumination of the brake light (not sure if this is possible or not). Looks like these grounding plates are secured with plastic tabs, that would need grinding to separate them from the housing.
Other alternate is to mount an auxiliary light on the plastic license plate holder / bracket and route wiring into the tail lamp to achieve the same result.