Farmboy Design's XJ Rear Tail Light Housings
	Category:	Armor
	Author:	Onkover
	Date:	November 18th, 2005

To start off I hate to say that Farmboy Designs is shutting down the shop. I received these Tail Light Housings on a discounted price due to them clearing out the inventory. I was not able to get lights with it so I had to set them up myself. As of September 2005, they still have some remaining boxes with and without the cut outs for the lights. The same items can be bought at Quadratec.com including the lights. They come raw and will need to be painted.

Raw light housing from Farmboy

The next step was obtaining the lights. I decided to go with almost all LED lamps for numerous reasons. The main lights are the Maxxima Oval Red STT 42 diode model #M63420R. The Grommet for these lights is the model #M50600. The three pin right angle connecting wire for this is model #M50900. These lights I got from Ledtrailerlights.com with fairly fast shipping. All of the rest of the lights are a model 15 light. I got these lights locally. The clear LED lamps where not going to be big and being my reverse lights don’t work right now, I opted for the incandescent TruckLite model #15200C. The red and amber lamps are from Roadmaster. They are packaged as an 8 diode LED with 2 lines of 4 lights per lamp. Come to find this was not true and only contain 2 rows of 3 lights yielding 6 LED lights per lamp. The Red is model #1831R with the amber listed as model #1831A. Six of the 2 pin wire harnesses for all model 15 lamps that are Trucklite model #94902. Also needed are 6 of the Trucklite model #15702 grommets to mount the model 15 lamps. A pair of 1 inch grommets is also going to come into play. All together with some small tools and silicone and we are ready to install.

The install is simple as long as you think before each step. You will need small hand tools, silicone, conductivity tester, wire cutters, butt end connectors and connection crimpers. If you wish to make better connections then you should consider using heat-shrink tubing and a solder the connections. Start by removing the four bolts retaining the stock light housing. Keep these, you will use them.

With the housing removed you can pull out one light at a time and label them. With all labeled you can cut off the lamp heads as close to the bulb as you can.

The new wire harness does provide extra working room but just leave slack. Strip back ½ inch off the ends of all wires and attach proper fitting butt end connectors. Insert the 1 inch grommet into the rear of the new taillight housing. Feed all wires through the 1 inch grommet in the rear of the housing. Prop up housing and it is time to start connecting your leads. On all but one the black wire on each bulb, in my case, was the negative. The exception was the main light. Using the conductivity tester you can tell what wire is ground. Stop and attach to the pig tail harness accordingly.

I made the mistake of attaching the pig tails prior to inserting through the housing. I was forced to cut them all off because they would not fit through the rear 1 inch grommet. Connect all the harnesses to leads as labeled. Now is the time to secure the housing to the Jeep. Clean the surface around the rear holes and lay a bead of silicone around the factory holes. This will produce a good seal on the rear of the housing. Attach housing using the factory hardware and tighten by hand. Wipe clean any extra silicone around edges.

With the rear housing now in place you can insert the lamp grommets and gently pull the wires out for access. Insert one model 15 lamp and plug into according pig tail as labeled. Then insert the main lamp and plug in the three prong pig tail. Test and enjoy. I had to swap my hazard flasher unit with my turn signal flasher due to the low amp draw on the turn signal. Other suggestions are to buy a electronic flasher unit to compensate for this issues.

The cost of a new rear stock tail lamp through most places is in the $80 range. Many people have talked about not going with a kit like this due to the cost. Almost everyone one I know have broken these stock lamps and it does get costly. Quadratec.com sells the same housings with incandesent lamps for $230. I did the whole kit with LED lamps for $126.89. That is a $67 dollar saving without shipping charges. Considering if I brake 2 stock housings and have to replace them, I have already made up the cost and then some on these housings. They will hold up better to some tagging on rocks, are brighter, safer and use less juice. The grommets are hard enough that the lamps will take some pushing yet soft enough that they may push in before they break. It is a custom look that is very usefull in the process.