Well as I have read about other people's high brake light falling apart in their hand, mine has fell apart just sitting there. Yes brittle as heck and now laying in the rear deck. Instead of forking out $140 plus for a used one has anyone ever converted to the kits online? The strips that go in the rear window at the top. It say's they are flexable. Any pros or cons? Connection issues(LED vs standard bulbs). Other than it's not original. Have seen some on ebay for $60-70.

 

There's a thread where this is discussed, I think its about 4+ years old. I distinctly remember one member used a Bentley LED 3rd light....amongst the others shown.
Here's one...https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-light-159261/
This is the one I spoke of...https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...ome-off-76132/

 

Both of mine have failed and I replaced with used -- one has failed again. They don't hold up. Just ordered the assembly for 140. The light bar was not the problem with mine -- it was the mounting assembly and I can't find anything that will work

 

Go the LED route, junk that rubbish brakelight!

 

What's your solution ?

 

If you look at the 2nd link I provided you'll see what he's talking about.

 

The High Mounted Stop Lamp (HMSL) is powered by a relay in the boot mounted fuse/relay box and is NOT monitored by a bulb-fail module.

LED illumination is fine.

bob

 

I'm not seeing a solution ... except finding a used Bently third light.

The light part of the assembly is fine -- It's the housing that hold the light bar to the rear glass ..... that's the problem. And the metal clips?

I have no need to switch to LEDs .. just to switch ---- I have never had to replace any of the bulbs.

I ordered the new frame ...... my problem is the clips. I have already glued them once on this car. Actually, the rear glass has come down in price .... if the silly seal was not so expensive I would just order the glass and be done with it.

 

Call a glass company to afix the mounts to the rear screen.
They have more experience with bonding glass mounts.

Here is what we did at the dealer almost 20 years ago. (TSB 417-03)
Many different adhesives work for a while, some not at all, some forever??

bob

 

bob -- thanks.

Do remember reading the TSB a long time ago. Glued mine back on -- it held for a year or so. The problem I see now is the black coating has failed -- I don't know what the coating is .. but it came off with the glue. It's visible from the outside.

Not the best design

 

I used this product to glue the metal tabs back onto the glass and hold the light fitting in place. It's very good stuff and the lamp has stayed in place, I've used this in other applications and it's held fast. Make sure you heat the glass up first to provide a good bond, and be sure to get it right first time because I wouldn't like to try and prise it off the glass if it wasn't central or straight.

Repair Extreme - UniBond

 

A simple red LED strip light would give you more room on the parcel shelf and fairwell to the annoying item Jaguar installed, the main benefit is other people seeing your brake through other cars windows, which isn't always the case with the original. Fear of a rear end accident fueled my install.
My LED cost was £10 from a scapper locally that had a Bentley GT in with front and side impact and was literally hanging from the car, The strips on ebay start at 99c - with a simple 2 wire extension tucked behind the C pillar the job is done.

 

I only gave you what Sean provided as an option for a solution to the whole issue, he eliminated it. I rebuilt mine patiently by hand using JB Weld, plastic, adhesive and paint from Homer. It was cracked and broken all around and the tabs to hold the tan hood on were disintegrated and it was breaking as I was trying to fix it. When I rebuilt it I even added a disconnect with an added length of wire for future endeavors. I anticipate the use of an LED unit with a Leaper, I just have to build it first.

 

My current situation lol. Likely go the JB Weld route & I have SDZ seat colorant left, let's see what I can cobble together lol. My mount tabs looked to be intact, so just repair the crack & reattach.

Edit :

Seems it happened @ the right time, I just noticed the 2 end bulbs are out. I highly suspect the entire cover will now disintegrate as I replace them lol. Of course the only new pieces are in AGD/Oatmeal so I may be using that SDZ seat colorant on that as well.

 

If you need some more pics of mine, let me know KC. Patience is the name of the game and don't force anything as brittle as it is.

 

Indeed, as I was propping it up w/ the semi firm but pliable chamois container I could here cracking, seemed to resonate from the bottom/base ?! I made an ill effort-ed super glue strike that ended messy & I tried to clean it up w/ fingernail polish remover to not much avail. If I can get the colored shell off in 1 or @ least 2 clean pieces I have a plan to use the leather seat restore kit filler then refresh the SDZ color. I mean if it's pliable/durable enough for leather cracks/rips it should work nicely there.

Not sure I want to start on it right away though as something like a disassembled brake light laying around would irk me to no end lol. Oh who am I kidding I just returned from the midnight Walmart run for Sylvania 2825 bulbs & of course they only had 4 so I'll be stuck w/ a prone to die old unit still in place.

 

I updated mine to LED recently, prior to that, since I knew I wanted to do the update, I put in a connector on the wire so I could unclip it and pull out the light assembly and not fight the glass for space.

 

I was pondering LED but feared it would be much brighter than the incandescent OEM tail lights & stand out !?

 

Ok, not happy I have to fix that dang middle bulb, I had an issue when I put it in and thought I had it covered....grrrrrr.
But as you can see, the LED's are no brighter than the taillights which are bulbs and they don't look that bright in person. The phone camera pics up the lighting different.
Looking at the 2nd pic you can't see the crack I point out in the lower pic. Being that I didn't want to take the chance of cracking it again, I left it. The reason you see it is because the interior lighting defuses the tint vs Post #13 exterior view.
I took pics with and without the flash so you can see the slight inclusions, only viewable with flash, I didn't quite get sanded out, but no one will see.....well, except for now, the whole forum will point it out...lol.

 

Interesting, thank you sir.

Edit :

Our very own Carnival Kid came through & is sending me an intact SDZ cover so I'm sure I can get this back to standard.

This community is awesome, always a helping hand when needed !