NOT that I would do this to my car or anything, because it would surely be illegal, but how would I wire a switch to make all of the lights on the rear of my car turn off while having the head lights stay on? It would need to control all of the rear lights; brake lights(both while braking and while not braking), third brake light and also my liscense plate lights. The simpler the better for this one guys, I don't want to monkey up my harness too much for this unless I have to. Does one fuse control all these lights or multiple fuses, it wouldn't be too tuff to wire a special fuse with a switch, then if I needed I could take it off real quick like if I needed to. Ideally I would also like a little warning light by or on the switch to warn me when they have been killed, no need to draw unwanted attention from the fuzz by killing them on acciedent in traffic. Has anyone done something like this before? Thanks guys! :hail:

P.S. Please save me the lecture, I do have parents that do a good job of this, and I realize doing this would be illegal and possibly dangerous if used wrong.

 

You mean so when you're trying to out run the cops they wont see you slow down?

I've thought about doing this before, but I can't afford to speed anymore. Lost my license to many times.

 

some old ex-police cruisers are fitted with this feature. toggle switch is sometimes in plain view like under drivers dash, other times is hidden for instance using power window lockout switch.

acquire a copy of the factory wiring diagrams for your vehicle and installation will be straight forward.

be aware that the police now use thermal imaging, it's not just the light from your taillights that they can track you by.

 

Here is a link to a diagram of the circut in question:

http://www.geocities.com/vtcamaro/Pi...rams/pg192.jpg

It looks like one fuse controls it all, which will simplify things greatly. I am still stuck on how to get a warning light on the dash for when I have them turned off? Could I just switch the power from my rear lights to a small one on the dash for this? Would that be too much current for a little bulb? Thanks for the thermal imaging tip modular, but I live in a small enough town that I don't think it will be an issue. Thanks guys!

 

The basics of this are very, very simple. From there, it's up to you just how crude or advanced you want it to be, but virtually any of these methods will work:

You can find the brake wire...guess where?...above the brake pedal! There will be two or more wires there; test which one shows power when you push the pedal down......on most GM cars, it's a white wire.

Again, go to the headlight switch; the parking light wire is brown. This controls every running lamp on the car that is NOT a headlamp; that is, the tail lights, front parking lights, side marker lights, license plate light, and instrument panel lights.

Simply put, if you cut the white wire in half, the brake lights won't work any more. If you cut the brown wire in half the parking lights won't work either.

The simple version of this is to cut the wire in half, and wire each half of the cut wire to an ordinary toggle switch.....turning the switch on allows everything to work normally; turning it off disables the device in question. Remember, the parking lights draw a good bit of current, so you'll want a switch rated at 15 amps or more. Since the brake lights are only used for brief periods of time, almost any switch will do.

Instead of cutting the wires in the car, you could also do this: Remove the fuse going to the circuit you wish to control; if you use a test light or meter, you'll see that one terminal where the fuse was still has power, while the other does not..........you'll need to buy/make a fuse holder, get some crimp-on male blade terminals, as well as a toggle switch......

Wire it in this order: One male blade terminal into the hot side of the fuse slot, then the fuse holder with the same-size fuse in it, then the toggle switch, then another male blade going back into the fuse box...............you've done the same thing as cutting the wire, except with no cutting..........the outboard fuse holder is to duplicate the funcion of the fuse that was in the slot.........very simple to do, BUT it's possible the blade connectors can be yanked from the fuse box; you'll need to secure all your wires neatly and solidly so your foot won't kick it loose one day.

If you want to get more advanced, use a a pair of relays, or one DPDT (Double Pole Double Throw) relay to control the circuits; the relay could be activated by even the smallest, cheapest switch, mounted in a location of your choice; you could even get a lighted switch for this. If you don't know much about relays, go to www.the12volt.com and learn.

 

Thanks for the post Chris!

:lala:

:lala:

:lala:

 

if you have an automatic transmission in the car, do not cut the brake light wires at the brake pedal switch. the pcm needs that input to control the transmission tcc.

 

Dustin, you're welcome! I never thought of what 2vmodular is saying; he makes sense. Look for a harness running to the rear of the car, along the doorsill or in the kick panel. Find the brake wire in that harness, and interrupt it there.

 

This isn't of any help but there used to be these 2 brothers that owned a car here in New Jersey not to far from where i am. They put these lights on the back of their car that were like high beam headlights. That they turned on when running from the cops. The lights were hidden behind the license plate and were exposed when the license plate flipped down via a lever in the car. Imagine being the cop trying to get the license plate number from this car. From what i am told this setup worked on a few occasions, but they eventually got caught. So be careful, and good luck

 

dont forget to tie the switch into the license plate light too..

 

As Chris already mentioned, the brown wire cuts power to EVERYTHING minus the headlamps.

 

sorry bout that

 

Or else just remove the lisence plate light. I think cops have better things to do than pull you over for missing a lisence plate light.

 

Depends on the area.

 

I've been pulled over in my winter beater for having a burnt out plate light

 

Thanks for the post fellas!

 

Could just be easier to run a toggle switch on the ground wires wouldnt it?

 

Eighty5TransAm,

There are many grounds throughout the car, and they are, nearly always, very short wires bolted to the car body, somewhere near the device that's hooked up. So, to interrupt the grounds too all the lights, you'd need to run wire all over the car; to the rear end, to the front end, I'm not sure how you'd do the side markers......you'd need A LOT of switches or relays...not really practical.

 

I have a friend who did this to his impalla ss.
He cut all the juice to everything. ANd he used a winsheild wiper motor to flip down the license plate. But this was back in the 60's, so you could get away with that stuff, Like cruising by the cops at 170 mph in a built big block super sport.
Also, cops will pull you over for everything. My licensce plate on my truck was missing a bolt once, and they pulled me over. it was still hanging there. Luckily they gave me 10 days to fix it, but they did give me a $10 seat belt ticket.
aaron