Symmetrical tail lights on a UK 350Z

Paul_S

Club Member
I've been busy this weekend! This is another shameless cut and paste from the post I just made on 350ZUKOwnersclub.

I was thinking how we don't have enough 350Z threads on here!

For those who don't have a 350: the UK cars have a red lense on the RHS cluster where the fog light is and only the one reverse light. The JDM cars have no reverse light (you already knew that!) and 2 reverse lights. Therefore the JDM's look great (nice and symmetrical) and the UK ones look like someone in Nissan had a bad day in the CAD studio.

Here goes.... and paste!

OK folks, you've seen it done before - but not with this many photo's!!!

Since there are so many piccy's I'll break this down into 3 posts:

1. Rear Bumper 'removal'
2. Light cluster differences / modification
3. The final result

So here we go:

1. Rear Bumper 'removal'

I changed my cluster without removing the bumper, I managed get the cluster out by just taking out a few fixings on the right hand side.

Remove the rear light above the bumper. There are 3 bolts hidden under some plastic clips. I wrapped some insulating tape around a screwdriver so I didn't scratch the plastic.

1-Taillightfixings.jpg


With the light off you can see a bolt to remove here

2-Taillightremoved.jpg


There is also a bolt behind the rear wheel. I decided to remove the lining too. It's easiest to remove the rear wheel to get to the screws in the wing lining.

3-Topwheelarchscrew.jpg


There is another bolt under the bumper

4-Underbumperscrew.jpg


I also removed the 2 clips under the bumper just next to the rear silencer (no photo here!)

And finally, a tricky little white plastic catch that you need to turn 90 degrees that is very well hidden inside the bumper in the top corner where the light was.

5-Trickyrotatingfixing.jpg


With those fixings removed, the bumper will slide back like this.

6-Bumperloosened2.jpg


The rear light cluster is held on with a philips screw at each end. I managed to removed the screws and lift the light out of the gap I opened in the bumper without too much stress. It does help to have a very short screwdriver for this.

So we now have the light removed.

7-Lightclusterremoved.jpg


..and onto the next post...
 

Paul_S

Club Member
2. Light cluster differences / modification

Here is a UK cluster (with the red filter) and a JDM one
8-The2clusters.jpg

The important thing to remember when swapping the clusters is that the wiring harness is different. See the 2 plugs side by side (I removed the orange seal on the JDM one)
13-MultiSocket.jpg

Notice they use different pins? That is because the JDM has twin reverse lamps whereas the UK doesn't have a reverse light on this side to make room for the Fog light. The harness in the car gives both feeds - hence using different pins.

I have a high intensity LED lamp to put in the clear cluster to make the red fog light so I removed the loom from the UK cluster and put the LED in the lamp holder instead of the white bulb.
9-WiringremovedandLEDinserted.jpg

Most of you will want to stop here but I wanted to do something a little different and have twin reverse lamps AND a fog light. So I needed to modify the cluster. I drilled a hole next to the indicator bulb and cut some slots so I could re-use the brown lamp holder I had spare.
10-Extrabulbhole.jpg

Here it is fitted in the cluster.
11-3bulbs.jpg


12-Newbulbsinstalled.jpg

I did actually cut out the segment of the old cluster that held the bulb and was going to glue it in place on the new cluster but I practiced cutting the slots in the old cluster and it seemed to work OK.

Next was to modify the loom to have 4 pins. I removed the appropriate connector from the old loom (in the end I had to butcher the old plug to get it out intact)
14-Removedconnector.jpg

And then fitted it to the socket.
15-4pins.jpg

Finally I used a trusty scotch-lock to connect the earth.
16-Newloom.jpg

Now it's just a case of fitting the cluster in the bumper and refitting the bumper back on the car before refitting the rear light.

I did, however, check all the lights worked before assembly!

...and onto the next post...
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Paul_S

Club Member
3. The final result

Here is how the car looks. Much nicer with symmetrical lights
coolio.gif

17-Symetry2.jpg

A close-up of the fog lamp
18-Foglight.jpg

The indicators still work (the indicator on the RHS is slightly obscured by the reverse lamp but you don't notice)
19-Indicators.jpg

Twin reverse lamps - OK it's not symmetrical!!! But when I decided I didn't want to interfere with the reflector around the fog light and opted to put the reverse lamp in with the indicator instead.
20-ReverseLights.jpg

All the lights!!
21-Alllights.jpg

Enjoy
teeth.gif
 

suzy

Well-Known Forum User
what a brillant post - you have gone to some serious time and effort to put that together:bow:

and you are right we don't have enough 350Z threads here - hope input like this it might improve
 

Rob Gaskin

Treasurer
Staff member
Site Administrator
Yes thanks for this, I agree it looks better. As a 350 owner now these posts are good to see.
 

Paul_S

Club Member
There is a wealth of info like this on sites such as 350ZUKOwnersclub but I've decided to add my 'useful' posts on here now too - let's see if we can mix up the 350Z section a little ;-)
 

Arkwright

Inactive
well done Paul S we need more interesting posts like this to liven up the 350 space and create more interest.
 

suzy

Well-Known Forum User
Rob Gaskin said:
Yes thanks for this, I agree it looks better. As a 350 owner now these posts are good to see.

so when are you going to start a thread and introduce us to you new car;)
 
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