What do I need to make these work on my Formula. I bought a set, but they dont have the same bulb set-up as my current tails. I beleive the TA tails are off a 85 TA.

 

from all thats been said before hand, you'll have to swap the rear tailight harness to the style of the lights that you use. The 85-90 T/A lights are all the same, and 1982-1985 firebird light harnesses should work too. I swapped from 85 base lights, to late 80's T/A lights w/o issues.

 

I swapped T/A tail lights into my Formula, I had to swap the turn signal sockets to fit the new tail lights.

I used a 3 wire socket and took one of the wires on each side from the small 194 lights, so that the turn signals light up with the tail lights, and blink when using the signal as well.

The other 3 wires on each side from the smaller lights I just taped off with electrical tape, and stuffed into the harness.

You can get a 3 wire style socket off almost any 3rdgen, so that you can swap it for the turn signal.

 

Think you can get me some pics?

 

For the record:
For the 91-92 style T/A tail lights to work in my 87, the sockets even lined up and plugged into my harness. Unfortunately the turn signal sockets on the 91-92 TA tail lights did not allow enough room to use the original plugs when installed on the car, I had to splice in just the plug on the turn signals, then it worked fine.

The 85-90 Trans Am (& 85-86 S/E) Tail Lights should be essentially the same setup as the 82-84 Tail lights and I would not be surprised if they would interchange without any problems. (although I have not checked it). Keep in mind that the Fuel gage sender wire uses the tail light harness for at least 82 & 83, possibly as late as 1985.

The 86-92 Base Firebird and Formula Tail lights have seperate amber turn signal lights. IF you got to to tail lights without the Amber lens then you will need to swap out the harness or at least do some wireing. Its been a long time since I went thru the diagrams but IIRC the brake light that flashes when the turn signal is active is actually controlled up in the steering column... Since they use the same column on each car for any given year each year its safe to assume that there is no change up there needed.

How the blinkers work is when you turn on the blinker there are 2 wires that go back to the tail lights, with an amber tail light it grounds after the light and it flashes. Pretty simple. When you have the same light controlling the brake light and the turn signal you already have power at the light when the brake is applied, so instead of the wire going to ground in the rear of the car it loops back to the column and it grounds up there, then when you turn on the signal it sends power to the light and they cancel each other out. On some systems I have seen when the turn signal is flashing and you hit the brake there is a single funny blink, then it blinks normally again... Pretty neat really.

John

 

Where does the tail light harness unplug from on our cars? I've never looked, and might be doing this swap soon. Does it connect somewhere in the hatch area?

 

yup, it plugs in behind the rear interior trim panel over on the LH side, usually you have to pull the LH trim panel as well as its more behind that IIRC.

I know that the 91 & 92 T/A Tail light harness plug is different than the base firebird for some reason, it may have to do with production and not install the wrong lights on a non T/A

 

Here's a pic with the tail lights, and 84 Bird bumper cover


Here is how they looked with the lights lit up, before I wired the turn signals to light up with the tail lights.


And here is the only pic I currently have, after I wired the turn signals to light up with the tail lights, and flash when signaling.

 

Thanks for the pics, but I meant of the actual wiring.

On a side note, I know now how my car will look when I delete those little bumper inserts.

 

I guess I'm confused...

On my 87 GTA, I want my rear red side marker lights to work with my turn signals, like the wig-wag way the fronts do. And I don't like the way the outer most 3rd tail light, doesn't work with the turn signals.

I bought 1157 sockets today, to replace the outer most 1156 bulb sockets (I checked first...the 1157s fit exactly the same, so no ftment problem!), so they could function like the inner 2 bulbs. Just gotta rewire the outer bulbs into the inner bulbs.

How do I get my side markers to work like the fronts? Different bulbs, I'm sure. And, of course, the re-wiring.

 

Yeah I knew as soon as I bought my car, I was going to be getting rid of those ugly black bumper things.

As far as the wiring, I can't get any new pix, the car has been put back into storage due to my having no job since Dec. 16th 05. All you need to do is remove the turn signal socket for the original tails, and wire in the 3 wire socket. The power and ground wire the same, then take one of the Brown wires from the smaller bulb (the 194's) sockets that you won't be using, and attach it to the brown wire on the new socket.

Any other questions's feel free to PM or E-mail me

 

Thanks.