LED's, brakes, turn signals and Hazard Flasher
 

We were discussing in the "What did you do to your FB today" thread about LED bulbs and load resistors and I thought it might be better to not hijack that thread.

I've replaced my bulbs with LED's on my EV RX-7 (except for the rear turn signals). One issue with doing this is that for the turn signals you need to add a load resistor for each bulb between the ground and the turn signal line or the turn signal flasher fires very fast. Likewise for the brakes there will be an indication on the dashboard warning lights that a bulb is out.

There is some objection to the addition of the load resistors although the effect on the car is not going to be noticable because the load resistor only has an effect when the bulb is turned on. In the case of the turn signals this would be about 50 watts (0.07 HP) when the bulb is on due to the load resistor or original bulb. The brakes are twice this much but only when the brakes are depressed so who cares if you use a little motor power when you have the brakes lights on. You can purchase electronic flashers that don't care about the load from the bulb being different. I suppose you could just remove the warning indicator in the dash that signals the bulb is out for the brakes. After all you have bulbs with an estimated lifespan of 30000 on hours and you have four of them. So they essentially have an unlimited lifespan when used in a car and should never fail.

There are LED bulbs that are newer than the ones I got that have the load resistors built in. The one company I was looking at calls these CAN bulbs because they satisfy the load so you don't get any CAN messages. If these have the same load profile then they would be just pop in replacements for most people wanting the advantages of LED's without wanting to add the load resistors. It is certainly a cleaner installation. I may order a couple of these and try them on my other car.

So this leaves just the hazard flashers. In both my cars this doesn't work anymore. There is a sort of anemic buzzing from under the dash. It seems like it must be a common problem since both of my cars do it and did so even before I changed to LED's on the one car. After I post this I will do a forum search and see what is out there relating to this.

If there is interest I would post a list of part numbers I used for each location.

Interested in part numbers, cost, and any installation issues that may popup.

Can a different (more modern flasher) solve the same issue without using the resistors?

I saw an RX8 at our C&C last month that had these LEDs that unfolded once inserted into the
bulb position and spread 3 panels out from the center to give more light. Picture how the comm
satellites fold out their solar power panels. Very slick. I can get more info on those parts and
maybe pictures.

It was something like this: http://www.superbrightleds.com/morei...ed-spider/818/

I'm not sure SAs have any bulb out lights for the brake or turn signals. Anyone know?

Maybe its an FB thang?

I am interested as well.

As stated, there is an indicator light on the FB letting the operator know that there is a bulb out. This is tripped when the brakes are applied and the 4 bulbs that are the tail/brake lights illuminate their higher wattage filament and one of the bulbs isn't passing current through. Ultimately, when there is a discontinuation of a circuit of one of the bulbs the dummy light on the dash lights up letting you know a brake light is out. I havent tried to take a bulb out and see if this happens when a bulb is missing entirely while the marker lights are on, could be something to try. I wouldn't take that bulb out of the instrument cluster just because it could be an indicator later down the road if something was wrong.

This can be corrected as stated, with a resistor to compensate for the bulb being LED and having less resistance when the current is passed through. The only issue I thought of was where to mount this and if there was a way around it. As you bring up, the turn signal bulbs would need a resistor on each bulb to not trip the quick blinker syndrome. This results in 4 total resistors for turn signals if you do the front and rear lights.

When I did many hours of research on this subject I posted my findings on the forum here. Look for the following threads (I'm on my phone right now):
FB LED marker light conversion
FB LED tail light build
And that is where my info is. There were many good responses and opinions shared and I do plan on building a set of lights in the near future.

Hope something helped, I'll keep checking back in,
Austin

It is easy to tell. Pull a brake bulb, turn on the ignition and try the brakes. If there is an indicator it will show up on the dash. Pull a turn signal bulb and try the blinkers. Again the ignition has to be on because the signals don't work otherwise. With the blinkers the sensor is usually built into the flasher unit. Takes only a couple of minutes to do this test. I would guess the SA has both features. It was common on cars of that period.

It will display the

STOP
LAMP

indicator on an 85 which is just to the right of the E brake on lamp if a brake bulb is removed or burned out.

I tried to take some photos but it will have to wait for after sunset as they all look alike compared to the daylight snow glare.

I was thinking about doing LEDs in the near future. Anybody know anything about LED dash and gauge lights? Direct me if I'm wrong, but leds take less load off of your electrical system, right?

Ok, taking pictures like this is not all that easy. These are the right rear tail light on my 85 GSL. The first one is with just the driving lights turned on and the second is with the brakes on. The left bulb is the LED. It looks a little yellow here but that is just the way the exposure turned out. For the photo enthusiasts this was at 1/60th F 8.0 and ISO80 for both shots so the relative brightness is maintained.

The LED is brighter and fills the reflector better than the original bulbs do. I would say that it is just about the correct brightness while the original bulbs are a little dim.

This particular bulb is from superbrightleds.com and is part number 1157-R45-T Voltage: 12VDC and costs $24.95 unless you have a code of some kind. The R is for red.

There are four of these bulbs in my car now in addition to a pair of amber ones for the front turn signals. The turn signals for the front are 1157-A45-T. The reason for the colored LED's is to match the lens color. This lowers the power cost since LED's normally produce a single color. You could use a white LED but then you are throwing away energy by filtering the rest of the light anyway.

Is it worth $150 in LED's? I am not planning on doing this on the GSL-SE, only my EV conversion. And the only reason there is because at night it reduces the current drawn from the 12v car system by about 7 amps. And even at that I am not certain it is worth it. Others have brought up the fact that they come on sooner than filament bulbs. And this is true. They are also brighter. I guess if it help prevent a rear end it will have been worth it.

This is an area I want to address as well. I bought a bulb that is supposed to be the correct size so when I pull my dash apart to get at the instruments and replace the heater core with a ceramic element I will be able to try it. I don't know how many bulbs are in there. And this is going to be a couple of months.

I've been using LED's ever since they became almost reasonably priced in the early 70's. At that time you could get the red ones for around a quarter in small quantities. Green and amber were more and not as bright. That would be equivalent to a little under $2 in todays money. It wasn't but a few years ago that the efficiency of LED's exceeded that of filament bulbs on a watt per lumen basis. The really bright LED's are still expensive but are put out several times more light per watt.

If you replace all the filament bulbs in an RX-7 with LED's (including the headlights) you will save around 10amps at night. This is only 120 watts or about 0.2 horsepower after you take into account the losses in the charging system. It isn't going to make you go measurably faster. And the car doesn't really look any different.

I tried another bulb for the backup lights. I was trying to use a directional bulb but with the lens and housing this just doesn't work well. It is brighter but does not put the light in the right place. I am going to get one of the bright white 360 degree bulbs and give that a shot. For the moment I have the backup bulbs back in the car. I tried to take pictures of this but it just doesn't come out where you can tell anything.

I decided to take one more photo in the broad light of day showing the difference. Like the ones above the left bulb is an LED and the right is a stock 28 year old 1157 bulb. Again in the photo the LED looks a little yellow but when you look at it with your eyes it is actually redder than the stock bulb. This may be an artifact of the imager in the camera and the way colors are generated. It could also have had something to do with the white balance. And yes the car was dirty. I corrected that later in the day. I also backed it up next to my light colored garage door and watched the reflection on the door to see if I could tell how much faster the LED comes on compared to the filament bulbs. It is noticeable, probably approaching 1/10th of a second longer for full intensity of the filament bulb.

I hope this helps

Surprisingly doesn't look too bad for PnP LED bulbs. A better comaprison would be a newer 1157 that doesn't have so much age on it. The filaments degrade over time and have weaker outputs. Also with the turn signal, a proper sized load resister will work for more than one bulb.


The real benefit of LEDs in the SA/FBs would be less current draw on the already weak electrical system. Just the same as building a relay harness for the headlights so you can draw power directly from the battery vs sending the power through the weak wiring and headlight switch first.

Perhaps a new 1157 bulb would show something a little different. But it would still draw 2 amps when the brake pedal was depressed. For a single bulb you need a 6 ohm resistor. For two bulbs you need a 3 ohm resistor. Advantage of one resistor is you only need to find a place for one. Down side is that the single resistor will produce twice the heat. The load resistors you buy are typically 50 watt 6 ohm resistors. At 12 volts this is 2 amps or 24 watts so only using half the rating of the part. A three ohm resistor would be passing 4 amps at 12 volts so 48 watts. It would need twice the surface area to dissipate the heat as effectively as a pair of 6 ohm ones. Fortunately this isn't a big deal because turn signals only have about a 50% duty cycle and then only when you are signaling a turn. You might sit at a light for 2 minutes and for that 2 minutes you are averaging 12 watts. Brakes are 100% duty cycle for the whole 2 minutes so of a little more concern.

A replacement of the flasher unit should be possible so you don't need the load resistors. I will post if I discover a pin compatible replacement. I recommend against just wiring something in, not just because it could be messy but more because of aggravation when something goes wrong.

I was not aware that people considered the electrical system in the FB to be weak. I never had any trouble with my 82 or either of my 85's and on the 82 I had a considerable car stereo and had replaced the headlamps with offroad (read that illegal) Cibies. What goes wrong? I suppose you might see a 30 amp load on the alternator if you have the wipers and rear defroster and heater fan and the lights all turned on at the same time. Is the alternator that anemic? This would be a little over a half horsepower load on the motor.

I think I see my next project now forming. Good info and I agree, a comparison with a new 1157
would be interesting. I'm mostly interested in LEDs for the brighter illumination, faster light up,
and less load on the system.

Also, they should be the last bulbs needed, ever!!!

$150.00 isn't that bad for the benefits. We spend way more than that for more trivial things I'm
sure.

I know for a fact that the SA electrical systems are poor and the stock alternator can
barely keep up with all the stock goodies on and the lights all on. Thats why I
have my lights, fuel pump, elect fans, and ignition all wired up with direct battery
connections with relays triggered by the stock circuit. Normally all those things
(except the fans) push full power through the full circuit to work. For example
the ignition power goes through the full length of the harness as it gets switched
from the ignition switch on the column. Same for the lights. The fuel pump has
issues as well. So all those paths become, over time, failure prone as the wiring
and switches age and increase in resistance. If you take apart the engine harness
you can see how poorly they are made. Its pretty pathetic to look at once you
have it unwrapped.

SuperbrightLED's now has relay replacements with no load minimum. Can anyone possibly confirm this is the correct relay?

CF13JL-02 LED Bulb Electronic Flasher | Flashers & Load Resistors | Car Bulb Installation Supplies | LED Car Bulbs | Super Bright LEDs

chad, this looks correct, but would need to see that load compensation is to make sure it would work correctly. hate to spend the money on bulbs and relay just find out it still triggers bulb warning system.

There is no dash warning on the turn signals. Instead it blinks faster to tell you a bulb is out. This is a function of the flasher relay. So if this flasher has the correct pin out it should work. I am using the load resistors and kept the original flasher. If this proves to work for someone Ill get one and swap it out and remove the load resistors.

Was wondering if anyone can *confirm* that Canbus LEDs actually prevent the Stop Light warning light from coming on in FB 85s.

I recently swapped out the incandescent 1157s and 1156s in my 85 GSL for (non-Canbus) LEDs -- red for taillights, white for backup lights -- and I get the stop light warning light in the cluster whenever I step on the brake...

Given the price of these things, I was hoping to get confirmation that Canbus types will actually take care of the problem before ordering a new set...I really like the look and brightness of the LEDs (22W each, from autolumination.com) and hope there's a solution for this short of taking out the stop light bulb from the cluster...

Soooo.... Any confirmation?

Pretty sure the Canbus bulbs will still be seen as failed by the RX-7. They have insufficient load to trigger the circuit. There is just enough load so the modern sensors see that a bulb is present and report.

You can add the load resistors which are 6 ohm for each bulb if you don't want to take the instrument cluster out but I think the long term solution for the stop lights is to just remove the bulb from the dash. At least in places where this doesn't cause an inspection failure.

I would love to be proved incorrect.

I replaced my backup lights with a set that I am finally happy with. These are individually brighter than both of the original filament bulbs together. I don't feel like I am backing up blind anymore.

Part Number: 1156-W26-CBT $19.95 each from superbrightleds.com. Just plug them in and you are good. No load resistors or anything like that needed for backup lights.

And if someone pulls up too close you can blister the paint on the front of their car <grin>. (Ok, not really but it is fun to imagine as a punishment.)

This is great stuff - thanks to all for details.
I swapped in a set of LEDs all-around about 4 yrs ago and the first time out in daylight a big-@ssed Semi pulled up beside me and the driver said "yer brake lights don't work" - meaning: the LEDs were virtually invisible in daylight!
Obv it sounds like this has changed and the "correct" ones exceed Tungsten outputs. - ??
That would be nice.

Keep the info coming-

Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

You are welcome. The brightest 360 degree LED's are quite a bit brighter than the 1157 filament bulbs. The only downside for brakes is you have to use load resistors to keep the STOP LAMP idiot light from coming on. At the moment I am just ignoring it because I am going to pull the instrument cluster out and do some other things in there. My plan is to just remove the STOP LAMP indicator bulb. Of course some places that would cause an inspection failure I have heard.

The brightest bulbs from superbrightleds.com for use as FB Rx-7 Stop Lamps are as follows

1157-R26-CBT $19.95 70/35 lumens 250/100 ma
1157-R45-T $24.95 120/30 lumens 165 ma
1157-R18-T $17.95 lumens N/A 115 ma

1157 bulbs have two filaments in them and to simulate this the LED bulbs have two brightness levels. The lumens ratings are for the two levels. If you just look at the lumens the bulb I used (R45) would be the brightest. If you trust their ratings then the R26 bulb is the brightest. It will depend on the housings the bulbs are placed in somewhat. I am going to get one of the 1157-R26 bulbs to try in my other FB. I will do a side by side comparison at that time.

Using the correct color LED bulbs is important for getting the brightest light. I have also seen that there are a few people who have removed the colored lenses on their FB's taillight assemblies and this would be even brighter in that situation.

This technology is changing quickly so I expect prices to come down, part numbers to change, and further improvements to occur. But they are already better than conventional bulbs.

Another update. I bought one of the 1157-R26-CBT bulbs. I put it in the car to compare and took some photos. In the tail light photos the right bulb is the 1157-R45-T. All the photos were taken with the camera on manual and the same settings.

The brightness difference between the bulbs is obvious with the naked eye. It is quite less obvious in the photos. The relative brightness is that the filament bulb is quite a bit less bright. The R45 bulb is second and the R26 bulb is brightest but not by much. That agrees with the vendors ratings as well so save the $5 and get the R26 bulb as it is the brightest anyway.

Photo 1 is obviously the three bulbs. The left one is your typical 1157. The middle is the 1157-R45-T and the right bulb is the 1157-R26-CBT.
Photo 2 is running lights with the left bulb the filament 1157.
Photo 3 is with the Brake pedal depressed with the left bulb the filament 1157.
Photo 4 is the running lights with the left bulb the 1157-R26-CBT.
Photo 5 is with the Brake pedal depressed with the left bulb the 1157-R26-CBT.

really appreciate the effort you are putting in here!

Stu Aull
80GS
Alaska

Do the 1157-R26-CBT bulbs still trigger the STOP LAMP light with the small extra resistance meant for canbus? Or would you sill need to add resistors if you didn't want to pull the dash light bulb?

My appologies if this has already been answered:

The reason i havent taken the dive with LED lights + resistors is because it seems to me that if you try to be more efficient with the LED's, and have them turn on quickly, putting a resistor in there would take it back to the exact function of a normal bulb - slow turn on time and high resistance (power drain).

Wouldn't the resistor negate everything about the LED (Perhaps except the brightness)?

~Geoff

LEDs still come on quickly with a resistor, but yes there is a power drain that you wouldn't have without a resistor. If I ever do LEDs I'll see if I can omit the resistors.

I will verify this to be absolutely certain but I am pretty sure it will still trigger the STOP LAMP. I will post later with the results.

The load resistor will not affect the speed that the LED turns on or off. The load resistor goes in parallel with the LED bulb. Once you put in the load resistor you can remove the associated bulb and the car won't know. You still gain the additional brightness but you do not save any load on the alternator. And actually you do save, because the load resistor only loads when you step on the brake and I know I don't spend all that much time with the brake pedal depressed. The other contact that is used for the running lights at night does not need a load resistor. So for the running lights you will lower the load on the alternator. With the brake lights it would save about 4 amps and 1 amp more for the side markers. The front turn signals are also running light so that is another 2 amps savings. At night replacing the front turn signal bulbs, the four side markers and the four brake lamps would save about 7 amps of load on the alternator. And 7 amps at 13.4 volts is 94 watts. After factoring in losses to get those 94 watts. This is about .15 additional horse power for free (at night.)

If you just want to dip your toes into trying LEDs I suggest you do the side markers first. They don't require a load resistor so you get all the advantages. Both of my cars needed a little cleanup of the side marker sockets. I had a couple of bulbs that I thought were burned out but it was corrosion on the contacts. I just sprayed with contact cleaner and inserted the bulb a few times to clean it up. If you happen to like the appearance of clear side marker lenses this would be a perfect time to switch to LED's.

To summarize there is really no downside except expense.

Does that answer your question?

Remove the STOP LAMP idiot light from the dash and you can do the brakes and side markers today. The big one for me was the backup lights! I always thought the backup lights were wimpy. The 1157-W26-CBT bulbs are fantastic as backup lamps.

The turn signals are another matter. You get the hyperblink when you change them for LEDs without the load resistor. When I get some other projects done I will see if I can find a pin compatible replacement flasher. So far I have only changed the front turn signals for LED's and installed the load resistors. This was strictly to save the amps at night.

Perfectly well good sir. Adding this to the list of upgrades. Thanks for your research and sharing of knowledge!

I did the CAN LED test today. 1157-R26-CBT still needs a load resistor. I wish it was not so.

I find this interesting. The R26 is a bit of a trade-off. It's brighter as a running light, but not quite as bright as the R45 as a brake light. According to SuperBrightLEDs:
The R26 is 70/35 Lumens
The R45 is 120/30 Lumens

The R26 is taller, though. It may be that the light housing likes its output pattern better.
Still going to try the $8 ones. They sport 60/20 lumens. I'll see if that's enough, or at least comparable to the incandescent. Probably OK for the turn signals, at least.

That's good to know. Thanks for taking the time to do that!

I know what they rate it lumens wise but the R26 is brighter both ways. It may be the way the lumens are measured as well or like you say it matches the housing better. It will be interesting to hear what you think of the $8 one. Could be a better option for most people. And as I have mentioned before the front turn signals benefit from the power savings at night. The rear turn signal bulbs are 1156 and I wouldn't bother putting in LED's there unless you are going to the clear housings. You use the signals so little there is no appreciable power savings from changing to LED's.

This is just one of those silly things that I had to look up - according to the available sources the 1157 filament bulb is rated at 402/38 lumens.

So probably close to 440 lm with both elements on.

The red LED's only put out light in a very narrow spectrum. In the case of the red LED bulbs almost all the light passes the red filter in the tail light assembly. In the case of the 1157 filament bulb only about 10% of the light makes it through the red filter. That is why the LED bulbs are brighter even though the lumen rating is lower. In the case of the backup lamp the LED bulbs are rated 490 lm for the CW26 and 220 lm for the CW45. The CW26 is quite a lot brighter than an 1156 filament bulb. I didn't buy a CW45 because I doubted it would be brighter than the 1156.

When you start adding in colored filters you can no longer do a direct comparison with lumens. The other thing that can mess up the comparison is the fact that LED's are directional in nature so the housing makes a huge difference in the apparent brightness.

Right. Light measurement has a lot of fudge factor - where in the spectrum the measurement is made, on-axis/off-axis, colored filters, like you say. And there doesn't seem to be any sort of guidelines or parameters, or at least no one mentions them.
Often the LEDs are perceived as brighter despite the measurements, quite possibly because the measurements are biased toward white light.

SuperBrightLEDs.com offers a flasher that is compatible with LED's.
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For the '79 SA (possibly the '80), you will have to make a "pigtail" jumper/adaptor from the under dash connecter to the new flasher.
.
Hint: Use a H-4 headlight plug SOCKET for one end.
.
I used the brightest 1156/1157 type bulbs I could get from SuperBrightLED's and had the reflectors re-chromed. ALWAYS USE THE COLOR BULB THAT MATCHES THE LENS COLOR (Amber, Bright White, or Red). You'll get more light through the lens that way,
.
To remove the old reflecters, heat up the nose of some needle-nose plyers on the old gas stove and squeeze the plastic knobs to narrow the end. Gently pry the reflectors loose. On some of the units, the center reflector is ALUMINIUM! You'll have to shop around to find taillight units that have the steel center reflector for re-chroming.
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Use a Dremmel cutoff tool to grind off MOST of the plastic tabs that hold the reflectors, leaving just enough to position the newly re-chromed reflectors.
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Buy a pack of nickel-plated thumb tacks. Using a heated paper-clip, burn a hole in the center of each tab.
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Position each reflector (one at a time) and push the thumbtack through the hole until the head contacts the reflector. Use a drop of super-glue on the pointy side of each thumb tack when finished.
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Repeat until finished.
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You can do the same with the front parker lights.
.
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For the dash bulbs (all of the interior lights) SuperBrightLED's has a selection of colored LED's that will fit (2 sizes in the gauge pod), bulb for the interior light, etc. (Use the correct color LED determined by the lens color).
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For the interior light, I used blue through the clear lens for "mood" lighting. I also added s couple of LED's to that circuit to light up the floor while the door is open and for the '80+ you can change the color of the "key" light bulb in the steering column cover to something more pleasing than white.
.
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For the side markers, buy a couple of yellow (for the '81+ also a couple of red) license-plate lighted bolts from SuperBrightLED's. Drill a 3/16's (or a 1/4" I forget) hole in the back of the sloped portion of the light socket. Position the hole so the bulb does not extend into the lens when installed (this is not a problem in the '81+ as the lens sets a little higher).
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Hook up the red wire to the turn-signal circuit and ground the black wire.
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Now you have blinkers on the front side-marker lights. (cost is about $2.00 per light)

Pics now Dick!


Please :D

This information is specifically for the 85, but probably applies to 84 as well. It may be applicable for earlier years but I don't know that for certain.

This past weekend I did a bad thing on my 85 GSL-EV and that was to hook up the 12volt battery backwards. It turned out that in my case with the stuff that is left in the car that the oscillator (looks like a relay on the drivers side of the car next to the radiator and the CPU under the dash were damaged by this. I was able to fix the CPU but just discarded the oscillator since I wasn't using it in the EV anyway. When I had the CPU out of the car and on my bench I decided to look at fixing the rapid flash issue you get when you replace the turn signals with LED's. As it turns out this is probably a simple change of a couple of parts on the CPU board but as the schematic in the FSM does not list the components it isn't quite that easy. There is no flasher module on the 84 and 85, it is integrated with the CPU module. I wasn't going to spend a day reverse engineering that portion of the CPU so for now the turn signals will need a load resistor.

However you can easily disable the STOP LAMP indicator by pulling the blue with green stripe wire out of the connector that goes to the Lamp check relay. This relay is mounted on the other side of the CPU mounting plate just behind the fuse block. The connector is easily accessible and all you have to do is pop that wire out of the connector and then tape it to the cable. I suppose you could just cut it but then it would be harder to put back to original if you wanted that for some reason. I used a jewelers screwdriver pushed in from the wire side to release the connector from the housing. I wish I had taken a photo of this. I believe that the Lamp test will still work with this modification, it just wont nag you about burned out brake lamps anymore when you use LED's in that position. I will try this at some point on my GSL-SE when I get three more bulbs for it and report at that time.

any update dougingraham? I have had the parts & pieces to swap to clear tails, just haven't made it that far due to cold start issues.

I assume you were asking about disabling the check lamp relay for the stop lights and the answer is not yet. I almost got to this over the weekend. I am driving with the STOP LAMP indicator coming on every time I step on the brake. The PO had an alarm system installed and to get at the check lamp relay I need to remove the last piece of it. Real Soon Now I will get this done. I know it works to pull the wire as I mentioned previously. The only thing I dont know for certain is that the STOP LAMP indicator test will still work which would be a fail in some places for an inspection. It looks like it will work based on the schematics.

Doug

Finally got to verify on my GSL-SE that pulling the green wire with blue stripe out of the check relay will prevent the STOP LAMP indicator from coming on but still allows the start up lamp test to work. So if you live in a place with inspections that checks that the warning lamps all work you can still use LED Brake Lamps and pass the inspection. (Unless they pull one to verify the sensor works.) I did consider the idea of opening up the check relay module and adjusting it for the current of four LED bulbs but there is little point as these bulbs should last 30000 hours. That would be 1 million 800 thousand miles at 60 miles per hour and that would require you to ride the brake pedal the whole time.

The photos show the check relay which is under the dash on the back side of the so called CPU. I just pried the contact out of the housing with a jewelers screwdriver and taped it off to the wire harness out of the way.

This is fabulous information! Thank you for taking the time to document this for the rest of us.