3rd Brake Light Leak

Yes. My OEM assembly came with a new seal. It's on my build thread somewheres. Mine was not leaking, but the seal was nasty.

 

Yeah once you “break the seal” it’s done.

 

Hey whaddaya know! It does! Peal and stick.

 

Damn, what moisturizer do you use?!

 

Yup. Piel n stik

 

None, thanks to the staggering amounts of carne asada I eat my skin retains its youth. My cholesterol and blood pressure don't like it, but my skin stays fresh.

 

Dude I had stupid dryness issues after I quit McDowells, that canola oil did wonders for my hands and boots!!

 

I’d like to see dramatized pics of darkness installing his 3rd light, similar to your junk yard pics. Maybe a beer or something else dangling out of his hand

 

Might start like this

 

You and your healthy living.

 

This one time in Chicago, my friends had a “ain’t nothing but a G thang” party, I ended up looking like ray charles walking around, so I went with it; got kicked out of a store buying beer because I said I had a seeing eye dog in training……clerk didn’t buy it(my drunk ass thought it was totally believable!)
Anyways, the night ended with me trying to slide down the hallway in my socks, overestimate my speed and smacked my face on the wood floor hard enough to bust open my eye bro! That was a good night!

 

Huh. What was it made out of? Did it seem like the door sheet adhesive? I'm not even sure what that door stuff is but I feel like I should know by now.

I don't trust the generic Chinesium foam seals in scAmazon, foam breaks down over time and I've fought many a leak in 10+ year old vehicles because the dealer opted to use foam seals.

 

It was like a foam seal as you bare describing. Mine never leaked. The only reason I changed it was because incandescent bulbs had burnt holes in the housing. If the lens gasket ever went bad that would have been a definite leak inside the cab.

For me, I was being proactive and new housing is slightly brighter than old housing.
Here is my build thread post. Not very many pictures, but hope it helps.

 

Word of caution to anybody that uses the heat method like I did. I had completely removed the headliner to prevent any unwanted damage or fires. Other than the pictured wiring harness, and the two plastic square inserts there were no other pieces of flammable or meltable plastics/fabrics around the heat.

 

I think I'll leave the housing glued to the cab for the time being. I've ordered the OEM gasket for the lens. I'll reevaluate after that. I started down this path because I wanted to install 921 LEDs in the cargo lights. Before I open it up again (and hopefully for the last time) I need to figure out which 921 red LED to use for the brake light.

 

Added to cart; I have a bulb out. Now to decide what I want to go back with (concerning the lights).
Sub'd

 

I used these for the white lights. Still uncertain about the red...

XINYANG Newest 4PCS T15 912 W16W 921 LED Reverse Lights Bulbs, Extremely Bright 54SMD 4014 Chipsets 6500K White LED 921 Bulbs for Back Up Reverse Lights, Truck Cargo Lights, 3rd Brake Light

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08QJ185M9?ie=UTF8

 

I've used these in multiple vehicles, they've been great:

$12 Antline Extremely Bright 921 912 906 T15 W16W LED Bulb Red, CANBUS 48-SMD 4014 Chipsets 1300 Lumens LED Replacement for Car Backup Reverse Center High Mount Stop Light Bulbs(Pack of 2)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V34ZLJ6

 

I'm still struggling to identify 921 LED Red for the 3rd brake light. These are CANBUS, and everything I've read says to not use CANBUS in non-CANBUS applications (although I can't uncover a good reason why not).

Have you used this successfully in a 1gen?

Does anyone know if I can convert the 3rd brake light to LED while leaving the others incandescent?

Bonus question...does anyone have a recommendation/solution for converting the brake light to LED? It's a dual filament bulb (tail lights/brake lights).

 

I’ve had no issues with this LED in my 2005 DC 1st gen in the 3rd brake light at all. I also used LEDs in the tail lights and have no issues there either (although they were leftovers from another vehicle and I don’t know brand or type).

 

I had forgotten that this thread got linked to the definitive leak thread. I've done that third brake light seal and I've cleaned the sliding window drains out and my truck still leaks in the back. The way my driveway is angled it keeps the water out of the carpet with both corners pulled back so I haven't really worried about it too much.

After linking the leak thread to someone else I noticed a few people talking about the weatherstipping/gutter thing that runs the length of the roof being a possible issue. I missed all that the first go around. Haven't really seen any great pictures of where the problem area is either. Now that the topper is on it's pretty inaccessible. I might have to mess with it after we get back from our trip.

 

Those seals (at least on my truck) terminate into the top part of the rear window seal. I seem to recall from one of PHM's posts where he showed those upper gutters are setup to drain into, and maybe around that seal? Anyway, he showed some pictures of this, although not with his typical well-hand-drawn red pen overall view, just a close-up of where the roof rail tees into that rear window seal up top. Don't ask me to find the post, but I'm like 100% positive he made it and 90% positive he showed a clear pic of the direct intersection, and 50% positive it may help.

 

It was a pain replacing my 3rd brake light. I used 3M Mastic tape to make the seal. I've used it before with good success.