Rear fog light & yellow rear blinkers for a 2006 Lincoln Town Car

[JensB]

Dear all, so I am moving to Europe, which means my '06 Town Car will need rear fog lights, and yellow blinkers for the rear, too. So I have two questions:

1. Now I know that the 25 Anniversary model had front-facing fog lights, and I was wondering if I could somehow convert this functionality to add fog lights to my own (regular Signature series). Does a regular LCM know about fog lights? Or will this mod have to be done around it?

2. Is there a way to install a different color bulb so that the rear blinkers will look yellow enough to pass inspection?

I know these are kind of broad questions but I'd love your take on this, because I don't want to spend thousands in homologation when there are a few things I can fix myself already here and now. Many thanks, your input is greatly appreciated as always!

Best wishes
Jens

 

[etinpa]

JensB:
Could you explain a bit about "rear fog lights". I'm not sure what that means.

Although the factory fog lamps run through the LCM (and a relay in the battery junction box) I can't think of any advantage of running added fog lamps through the LCM.

There is only one wire to each rear lamp assembly for the "bright" lights (i.e., brake/turn filaments) and the multi-function switch disconnects the brake light on the blinking side (and connects it to blink) so I don't see a way to add yellow turn signals with the existing system.

There should be a way to build some kind of electronic circuit that could differentiate between brake (both lights come on at the same time) and turn signal (where they don't come on at the same time) and connect or disconnect the blinking side to the (added) yellow turn signal on that side but I'd have to do more thinking about how to implement that.

 

[V35A]

I did some googling. USCARCONVERSION is one company to contact among others.
It seems to matter which country it is going to as to the regulations.
Early Euro cars had the rear fog light on a bracket. Later cars had the light molded into the body.
If allowed, I wouldn’t go through the LCM. I would wire in a protected circuit with a relay and switch.

Call the companies that do the conversion on a daily basis for the correct procedure for your country of import.

 

[JensB]

Could you explain a bit about "rear fog lights". I'm not sure what that means.

It's a single, high-intensity red light that you turn on whenever it's foggy. It's mounted on the driver's side, and required by European regulations. On the dash it shows as a yellow symbol. (There are also front fog lights, but those are not required in Europe, and they would have a green symbol on the dash.)

Although the factory fog lamps run through the LCM (and a relay in the battery junction box) I can't think of any advantage of running added fog lamps through the LCM.

I just hate the idea of adding a button to the dash that is not necessary... If I can manage to install the 25th anniversary edition switch (which has a state for enabling the head fog lights) then I can just rewire that to an aftermarket tail fog light. The indicator on the dash would be the green front fog light indicator, so I would have to add a stencil to make it the proper rear fog light indicator and add a shade to make it a yellow light on the dash. A lot of work, but it would be NEAT.

There is only one wire to each rear lamp assembly for the "bright" lights (i.e., brake/turn filaments) and the multi-function switch disconnects the brake light on the blinking side (and connects it to blink) so I don't see a way to add yellow turn signals with the existing system.

Yeah, that is the problem. If there was an extra "blink only" signal then I could splice it off, and replace one of the bulbs with an ultrabright LED amber one, and problem would be solved. (In fact, that's what most homologation services do: add an insanely bright amber LED behind red glass to make it look amber). Are there any conversion kits (for the electronics)?

As an aside, for the rear fog lights they would just replace one of the reverse lights with a bright red bulb and rewire it internally. This is possible because in Europe you only need one reverse light, not two.

Call the companies that do the conversion on a daily basis for the correct procedure for your country of import.

Thanks! I had a brief chat with one of the companies that do this sort of thing in Germany, and they even have experience with Town Cars. They say it's not a problem, but the minimal cost is around $1,800. Oof. So it would be nice if I could get some of the things sorted out here so they don't have to, and it would save time and money.

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[etinpa]

There are conversion boxes available. Search for "2 to 3 trailer light converter" or similar.

WARNING :
There are a LOT of 3 to 2 converters for connecting single bulb trailers to cars with yellow turn signals. 3 to 2 is NOT what you want. You need 2 to 3. The one you want is made for flat towing a car with yellow turn signals behind an RV with all red rear lights.

Of course you still need to have the remaining red bulb on the blinking side come on as a brake light. I would think you could take the original wire for each side to feed the converter (but not any lights) and then feed the red and yellow bulbs from the converter output.

The LCM will likely complain about the lack of load (it will think the rear bulbs are burned out) so some additional load will likely need to be added to the original wires at the converter input.

I've seen some complaints about how well the 2 to 3 converters actually work so do some investigating before you choose one.

 

[JensB]

Thank you, this sounds like an interesting option. Something like this? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z5Z8BZ7/

//edit: I added a picture for anybody seeing this thread later (and if the Amazon link disappears).

 

[etinpa]

Jens, yes, that is the type of converter I meant.

 

[JensB]

Perfect! I also ordered some original Ford tail lights that I will install in the bumper as rear fog lights (together with an insane-brightness 1157 LED substitute this should do the trick). What do you think?

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[etinpa]

I think those will look better than changing out one of the reverse lights. When locating them check carefully for clearance behind the face.

It will be interesting to hear how this all works out.

Be sure to keep us informed of your progress. It may help others going down this road later.

Besides, I will be watching with great curiosity!

 

[JensB]

Will do! Just noticed that these tail lights have a bit of a curve to them in both directions, I hadn't noticed it was that strong... I will see when the original pieces get here, but they may not fit on the bumber after all.

 

[JensB]

Found two options that may work, Pontiac style and Chevrolet style. No originals, of course, but those are flush mount. And they are not the terrible LED kind with lots of weak small LEDs, but they allow for mounting an 1157-style LED. I guess if I pair that with a super bright led from GTR or something similar [ https://www.headlightrevolution.com/brightest-1157-turn-signal-bulbs?quantity=1 ] it should result in a passable tail fog light. Will keep you posted...

 

[lassetexan]

Hi,
I've some orange led behind my red glas, so I get the yellow/orange turn signal.
LED-plattor för blinkers i lamphus

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[JensB]

Hi,
I've some orange led behind my red glas, so I get the yellow/orange turn signal.
LED-plattor för blinkers i lamphus

Interesting! I tried ultrabright GTR I-LED amber bulbs (https://www.headlightrevolution.com/brightest-3157-turn-signal-bulbs) but it all looks still red for me. I guess I will leave the red to yellow conversion to the pros in Europe (but I will let you know how it works out)!

Regarding the rear fog lights, I decided to use Billet Specialties 61340 tail lights (picture attached) with one red superbright GTR I-LED each (https://www.headlightrevolution.com/brightest-1157-turn-signal-bulbs?quantity=1). Those lights fit the overall style of the Town Car pretty well, I think, see a sketch of their possible locations attached. What do you think?

 

[lassetexan]

Here you can see how I've done to get amber turn-signal.

 

[JensB]

Thank you, that's very interesting! How close behind the glass are they? And what's that light strip below?

 

[lassetexan]

Thank you, that's very interesting! How close behind the glass are they? And what's that light strip below?

I 3d printed a base where I add some neodymium magnets and inserted them through the "lamp-socket" and the another neodymium magnets on the other side, so its more close to the "lamp-socket", and the led is the one I posted links to before..

The strip I bought is this if I remember right.

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[07-TC-SL]

I want to throw out a different idea.... you could temporarily wire things up to pass inspection, and then later go back and wire them up / switches in your more preferred fashion. If you later find a tail light that works better, swap it out later.

 

[JensB]

I like the idea of fixing it later when I have more time, that's true, but they will drill a hole in my dash to mount the fog lights switch, unfortunately, and I don't like that idea all that much. The rest of their changes will be reversible, of course.

 

[etinpa]

You could mount the switch in a "toggle switch bracket" (do a search on that).

There's a hole at the bottom of the dash to the right of the steering column right above the OBD port that has a push retainer through it. It's easy to access the back side of that hole to put a nut and bolt through to mount the bracket.

Before you mount a switch there, you should probably check that your knee won't hit it.

 

[JensB]

Some success! I installed two superbright LED modules in the rear bumper, now I need to wire it up to the dash. Will keep you posted!

It was hard because there was almost no space behind the bumper. I had to cut out a piece of the 3mm steel bumpers. I mounted two 3157 GTR i-LEDs [ 3157: GTR i-LED Ultra Turn Signal Bulbs ] in an aluminum bracket that I riveted to the frame. Cutting out the shape out of the plastic bumper was easy, but alingning it with the inside was tough. I inserted the front parts of the Billet Specialties 61340 tail lights (reflector wouldn't fit) and sealed it up with autobody sealant from the inside. The end result is OK, even though the bulbs are not perfectly centered.

Regarding the eletronics: I use a fuse tap for the cigarette lighter to go to my electronics box, which has two inputs, one from the dash fog light switch, and another one from the headlights fuse tap. Only if both inputs are on, the fog lights are triggered; for that I use a relay card that uses optocouplers for maximum galvanic separation of my circuit from the LCM. This conditional setup has the advantage that they only turn on with the headlights on, and it is a required regulation by German law.