Flashy...
Any vehicle needs taillights to be legal. A "special" vehicle requires special taillights. Through the development phase of this project, I was commuting between St. Louis and Chicago on a weekly basis, looking at a lot of taillights on I-55.
The vehicle came with a basic set of taillights, with "un/stop/backup lights combined in a single fixture by Grote Industries; very efficient and economical. The over-designed version included individual lights for run/stop, turn, back up, and a second set of run/stop with flash. Additionally these were LED lights rather than the "old fashioned" incandescent lights.
Lights
The lights came from buyTruckStuff.com, which had quite a selection of devices and offered decent customer support, answering a few questions along the way. Most of the lights used were Maxxima brand. They did have a minimum order amount, which was a small issue when I went back to order the side marker lights.
Flash Stop
It could be just for show, but under the guise of safety, we put a "Wig Wag" flasher on the inside brake lights. It generates a flashing pattern when the brakes are applied. The device that generates the flash is called BackOFF, and comes from Signal Dynamics Corporation,
The device has two flash patterns, based on the connection of either the red or orange lead to the vehicle's stop light lead. One pattern has a single Wig Wag cycle, followed by a steady On. The other has a repeating Wig Wag pattern with a 3.5 second "ON" delay between cycles. Here are the wiring diagrams. They are the same except for the connection of either the red or orange wire. One is used, the other is not.
Repeating Pattern One-Time Pattern
Side Markers
To make the vehicle a little more noticeable, side marker and turn signals were included. Unfortunately, a "dual" amber light was not available, so two "marker" lights were selected. One is connected to the "running" lights. The other is connected to the turn signal for the respective side.
Backup Lights
The original design called for roof-mounted flood lights to operate in conjunction with the backup lights. This, for benefit of the rear vision camera. As this presented a design issue for Supreme Industries, the initial build included only a pair of standard LED backup lights. The rear vision camera has integrated infrared emitters for low light conditions.
Turn Signals
GM, in its wisdom, ASSumed no one would ever want separate run/stop and turn lights on a truck. The factory configuration used the same filament for turn and stop indications. This means Unfortunately we committed, early in the project, to separate turn signals and had the custom rear bumper cutout for the lights.
After struggling to locate information from GM on the rear wiring harness, we finally found a "Mr. GoodWrench" that could confirm the default configuration. This made it necessary to tap into the front turn signals and run them to the rear of the vehicle to get the desired effect.
