Rear light conversion

[pushgo]

hey just curious, I'm wanting to put the lights of an 89 505 on my 88. Does anybody know if the connectors and dimensions are compatible? In other words, is the conversion interchangeable, swap and bolt and go?

[andrethx]

here is a link from last year to a discussion of the wiring issue...if i read correctly, electrical connections are not "swap & go" but require a bit of re-wiring.

wrt to the physical fit of the taillights --- i seem to remember reading somewhere on this forum that the later lights will bolt in, but the newer lights are wider than the older style lights, so you won't be able to use your older license plate moulding -- the piece between the trunk & fender that your license plate attaches to. this means that you will have to replace your license plate molding with the 89 style as well to do the taillight swap (maybe there's an exposed gap somewhere if you don't use the moulding?). the 89 taillights are not too hard to find, but from what i can tell, the 89 license plate molding is more rare...

edit -- okay, here's a link talking about the fitment issue. fernando can probably fill us in on this (as well as parts guys like nick)...

andré

[pushgo]

Hey andre thanks! Great link! On a side note, u need post some pics of the updates on the GL please! And we still need to meet for coffee!

[Bean]

Andre pretty much covered it. You need the tail lights with the light bulb holders, with the wiring connectors ideally, and you need that center decor panel between the lights. Tails are easily found on e-bay as reproductions - but the bulb holder panel that clips into the tail lights, the wiring connector, and that center panel all have to come from an actual 89' if you can find one.

There will also be a gap from the tail lights to the USDM bumper so you'll either need to do up a filler panel like the front bumper has on it, or you might want to try collapsing the bumper shocks and reinstalling them. Collapsing the bumper shock means you either have to drill them to let out the oil, then collapse to the depth you want and then weld in place. That would be the "easy" way - the hard way would be to make new bumper mounts from scratch.

Filler panel is the easiest of all and I believe this is what Victor (VVT) did on Deuce. If done well - you really wouldn't be able to tell.

Rabin

[andrethx]

okay, there's a posting on peugeot-l (post # 67607) where the poster says that the 89 tailights don't have the problematic boards that the earlier taillights do, they're more "modern" and (by implication) are thus are less hassle/more reliable. don't know if this is true, the post goes unanswered. so maybe there's a practical reason for the conversion, as well.

couldn't find any support for my recollection that you must also replace the license plate moulding -- pretty sure that the old one won't fit, don't remember where i read that you can't just go without one....

i think the taillight lenses are (relatively) easy to find as NOS pieces & repros b/c it's a frequently replaced item, car manufacturers probably expect to sell a few as replacement parts so they make more...taillight lenses get busted all the time, after all. pieces like the license plate moulding are replaced much less frequently. you'd have to smash up a car pretty bad to ruin the license plate moulding, after all.

i actually like the 89 taillight look myself -- better than the earlier look -- but since i've been researching 505s so much in the last year or so i've come to feel like doing the taillight conversion wouldn't look right if one didn't do the rest of the mods to give the complete 89 look. that's kind of an extreme point of view, i realize, but then again, i never claimed i wasn't nutty.

the final thing that put me off of the 89 taillight conversion completely was seeing the pics of the mid-90's argentine 505 taillight/license plate moulding setup. except for the lack of LEDs, that setup looks absolutely contemporary.

wrt to coffee, pm sent with my personal info.