SC- 1st Gen (1992-2000)

92-94 Flasher Mod: Solution for LED Tails

Old 06-25-17, 08:51 AM
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super400
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Default 92-94 Flasher Mod: Solution for LED Tails

There's been a few thread on this over the years, but I wanted to make a quick little one for new members, one that doesnt involve soldering. As most of you know, the 92-94 SC's use a different flasher than the later 95-00 years. When one changes the tail light bulbs to LED the wattage is changed leading to hyperblink. This quick mod allows you to change that and puts your blink rate back to stock speed. This will not get rid of the tail light out warning. All you need to do is pull out your flasher relay, open it up and find your favorite grinding tool. A dremel in my case with a sanding drum. When you open up the relay you will notice a metal loop. This is a resistor, it controls how much wattage is going to be sensed by the relay. What you want to do is grind away at this loop, changing the wattage it detects. This took be about an hour cause I didnt want to take off too much and ruin the relay. So id grind for a bit and plug it into the car to test it. I had to take off quite a bit for it to work and in the end there wasn't much of the loop left but the results were perfect. This is much easer than trying to solder a extra capacitor in series or solder resistors into the hazard light circuit. I highly recommend it!



The relay on the left one I cut down. The relay on the right is stock. As you can tell I had to cut away quite a bit. But Its nice to have stock blink rate again and with full LED tails!
Old 06-25-17, 11:52 AM
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This is awesome! I get a lot of inquiries about the 92-94, theres finally a quick fix for it thats not frankensteined!
Old 06-25-17, 01:17 PM
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super400
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Originally Posted by Organized Garage Status
This is awesome! I get a lot of inquiries about the 92-94, theres finally a quick fix for it thats not frankensteined!
I cant take all the credit. I saw a similar thread on the gs400 forum. Lookinging at the two flasher relays they both had the same metal loop resistor. I had a spare flasher relay so I took a chance and it worked! I agree this is such a simple solution compared the the Frankenstein options! I can't believe no one figured it out sooner!
Old 06-26-17, 09:13 AM
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Hmm interesting, so you just made that metal bar thinner?
Old 06-26-17, 10:43 AM
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Originally Posted by Luxor
Hmm interesting, so you just made that metal bar thinner?
Yes sir. I just ground away at the top and the sides until it the blink rate returned to normal.
Old 06-26-17, 12:22 PM
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This sounds way easier than soldering. Would this work if I wanted to run 95 or 97 tails on a 93 SC300?
Old 06-27-17, 06:48 AM
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Originally Posted by Kira X
This sounds way easier than soldering. Would this work if I wanted to run 95 or 97 tails on a 93 SC300?
That I can not verify. I still use my 93 tails, I prefer them to the later ones. I'd say it would be worth a shot to try it. Especially if you had a spare flasher relay.
Old 06-27-17, 11:41 AM
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Originally Posted by super400
That I can not verify. I still use my 93 tails, I prefer them to the later ones. I'd say it would be worth a shot to try it. Especially if you had a spare flasher relay.
I will give it a shot. I have a set of each kind of taillights.
Old 07-09-17, 03:09 PM
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I took a shot at this with my one and only relay...
and it worked great!

I have a 92 and have 95 taillights. Figured the science behind it was the same regardless of if it was a regular bulb to LED conversion or a 92 to 95 conversion (less wattage being drawn), so tried it out.
So, I'll confirm that it does work for the 95 taillight conversion.

I measured the amount of material that I had to remove as well. Prior to any modification, I was getting a diameter of about 1.6mm for that wire loop. Afterwards, I had shaved it down to 1.0mm in some areas and 0.75mm in others (sorry, all this was by hand so it was unable to be super even about it). I suspect the less wattage you have drawn, the more you'll have to thin it out. But for 92-95 conversion, that seemed to do it for me.

Thanks for the tip on this, OP!

Originally Posted by Kira X
I will give it a shot. I have a set of each kind of taillights.
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Old 07-11-17, 05:48 AM
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jus throwing this out there.. couldnt you have just de-soldered it and put something smaller in its place? seems like that would be much simpler.
Old 07-11-17, 05:49 AM
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Originally Posted by KoalaFD
I took a shot at this with my one and only relay...
and it worked great!

I have a 92 and have 95 taillights. Figured the science behind it was the same regardless of if it was a regular bulb to LED conversion or a 92 to 95 conversion (less wattage being drawn), so tried it out.
So, I'll confirm that it does work for the 95 taillight conversion.

I measured the amount of material that I had to remove as well. Prior to any modification, I was getting a diameter of about 1.6mm for that wire loop. Afterwards, I had shaved it down to 1.0mm in some areas and 0.75mm in others (sorry, all this was by hand so it was unable to be super even about it). I suspect the less wattage you have drawn, the more you'll have to thin it out. But for 92-95 conversion, that seemed to do it for me.

Thanks for the tip on this, OP!
Glad it worked for you! That gonna help out a lot of peeps that want to change to different tail light assemblies. I'd venture that if it worked for 95 tails it would probably work for 97+ tails too.
Old 07-11-17, 05:52 AM
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Originally Posted by logix7
jus throwing this out there.. couldnt you have just de-soldered it and put something smaller in its place? seems like that would be much simpler.
Maybe but it looks like its on their pretty good. Plus I don't have a soldering iron. I also don't know the resistance of the metal loop. You would have to figure that out first before you could put some sort of different resistor in.
Old 07-11-17, 08:03 AM
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I need to do this since i recently swapped in 95 tails into my 93 and also upgraded to LEDs at the same time. Hyperblink is getting old. What did yall use to take the material off? Dremel? Or it it soft enough to do with some sandpaper by hand?
Old 07-11-17, 08:41 AM
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Originally Posted by aletz12485
I need to do this since i recently swapped in 95 tails into my 93 and also upgraded to LEDs at the same time. Hyperblink is getting old. What did yall use to take the material off? Dremel? Or it it soft enough to do with some sandpaper by hand?
I'm wondering the same thing since I don't have a Dremel.
Old 07-11-17, 08:44 AM
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Originally Posted by aletz12485
I need to do this since i recently swapped in 95 tails into my 93 and also upgraded to LEDs at the same time. Hyperblink is getting old. What did yall use to take the material off? Dremel? Or it it soft enough to do with some sandpaper by hand?
i used a the sanding drum attachment on my dremel. I don't think sandpaper would be hard enough. Even if it was your hand will probably fall off before you get it finished. The no hyperblink life is fantastic. I put up with it for over a year, it drove me insane.

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