1995 YJ LED Tail Light Ground

[kidfavre4]

Hello fellow Jeepers. I've browsed the forums/youtube but can't get a concrete answer on how to properly ground aftermarket LED tail lights. 1995 YJ w/ 4.0 and AX-15 manual tranny.

I understand the OEM lights grounded to the body via the mounting bolts, and figure it's probably as simple as crimping on a ring terminal on the aftermarket ground wire and either putting it on the inside casing around the mounting bolt, or adding a nut to the back side and putting the ring terminal there, but want to get confirmation on what the best route is here.

Additionally, I've been running into some power feedback issues that are partially related to my increased interest in doing this correctly (dash lights flash when using turn signal,yj intermittent issue but more often than not lately), so I did remove and repair some hacky splicing from PO that tapped into my reverse lights and ran to the front of the vehicle to an unclipped harness just between the grill and AC condenser (assuming trail related back up lights added to front or some idea that powering a winch in reverse would be good) but with that wiring eliminated from the tail lights I still have the feedback into the dash lights and a voltage drop when in reverse.

Sorry if this should be two posts but figured I'd probably get a reply from the same field of experts with these two issues.

 

[machoheadgames]

You can do whatever you want for the ground. If the tail light has a dedicated ground, you can populate the empty pin on the body connector and run that to ground if desired. You could also cut the ground wire inside the light and loop it and put it on one of the mounting bolts. As long as it makes it to chassis metal, it doesn't matter.

I'm not sure what the second issue is stemming from but I'm going to need more info before helping with that. What exactly is it doing? Dash flickers when the turn signal is on, and that's the only issue?

 

[kidfavre4]

Thank you very much, Macho. The second issue is that when I turn on my turn signal (either side) the dash light behind my speedo blinks at the same cadence as the actual turn signal. Outside all signals work correctly, but the idiot light section signal on the cluster between gauges is very dim on the side that should be flashing and the other side also slightly flashes even dimmer in addition to the speedo light flashing.

Replaced both hazard and turn signal flashers with EL-12's ahead of the LED swap, but although they certainly helped the speed of the signal go from sloth like to normal, the dash lighting issue persists.

 

[jpjeep26uk]

Thank you very much, Macho. The second issue is that when I turn on my turn signal (either side) the dash light behind my speedo blinks at the same cadence as the actual turn signal. Outside all signals work correctly, but the idiot light section signal on the cluster between gauges is very dim on the side that should be flashing and the other side also slightly flashes even dimmer in addition to the speedo light flashing.

Replaced both hazard and turn signal flashers with EL-12's ahead of the LED swap, but although they certainly helped the speed of the signal go from sloth like to normal, the dash lighting issue persists.

I had this annoying problem too but on non LED bulbs. EU spec as I'm in the UK. I checked the wiring from the rear clusters and realised I had mixed the polarity on one of them so although they work as indicators they also triggered the dash to light in time as well. I switched the polarity of ground and live and also replaced this crusty old screw connector from 1876 with a new one and bingo the dash lights stopped flashing in unison when I flicked my right turn signal on. I also made the three earth bolts more rough to make a better connection to the tub so maybe that helped too? Just sharing;