TR8 Double Stop and Tail

The TR8’s in the background video and using doubled up stop and tail lights. Here is how to SETUP the doubled up cross-fed rear light bulb holders in the TR8. (Unfortunately the stop lights will be just doubled-up since they are fed from one single fuse only.)
Precautions first… It appears that in some cars the bulb holder needs to be filed slightly (indicated by the white line in picture 01) to fit easily into the hole in the light cluster casting.

The 21W/5W double filament bulbs have little knobs on the stem (indicated by the red arrows in picture 02) on different heights – they only fit into the bulb holders one way, otherwise they will not turn and lock. If forced in, the
21W filament will shine as the rear light – and eventually melt the transparent inner lens!

 

The bulb holders have three ¼” male blade connectors indicated 1, 2 and E (highlighted in picture 03). The 1 is for the 21W connection, the 2 is for the 5W connection and the E is for ground/earth (in non-metallic rear light applications). Our bulb holders are grounded via the locking in the cluster itself.

The double filament bulb holders are sold by Tex Automotive Ltd in England. (www.texautomotive.com) Part number is E99996.

You can buy the double bulb holders you need for this conversion from HERE

Picture 04, this is how it looks when you have taken the right side cardboard cover off. You can see the Red wire feeding the rear light and the Green/Purple wire feeding the stop light.

Picture 05, you can now take the Red wire and connect the straight piggyback connector to the 2 terminal.

Picture 06, you then fit a double filament bulb in the holder, take the old black bulb holder out and fit the new white holder in its place. You then connect the flag terminal of the old Red wire onto the empty male terminal on the piggyback terminal of the new Red wire.

Picture 07, then you pull the Red wire along the cable harness to the left side. Here you take out the black bulb holder for the stop light, fit the new double filament bulb in the white holder, slip the Red wire flag terminal onto the no 2 terminal and put the bulb holder in the cluster

Picture 08, you can now repeat the previous two operations working with the Red/pink wire connections for the left to right side feed. (The beauty in this is that now the outer bulb on one side is connected in parallel to the inner bulb on the other side giving the advantage of cross fed electrics…)

Picture 09, when done your right side cluster will look something like this. Now you use the black cable ties to bundle the two wires to the taped up harness. This will assure a tidy look while still not diverging too much from the original version as every thing can be dismounted in a matter of minutes should the need arise..

Picture 10, two cable ties on each side is probably enough

Picture 11 and 12, two pictures showing details of putting wire connectors to the bulb holders. The short Green/Purple stop light wires are mounted in a similar way as the longer Red and Red/pink wires – but only in a short loop from one bulb holder to the other in each of the two clusters. Since the stop lights are fed from one fuse only there is no cross feed possible but the impact of four 21W bulbs suddenly lighting up is awesome. This should save us a rear ending or two..

NOTE: This was originally written by Odd Hedberg a number of years ago so my thanks to him. Now of course the bulbs can be changed for LED ones and the new holders are usually red not white.