LED Lights

[rkm767]

My daughter just bought a school bus. We are trying to replace the backup lights and tail lifts with LED lights. Upon removing one of the backup lights, I found that there was only one lead. I am assuming that is the positive lead and the ground is to the frame by the screws holding the light assembly. The problem is that all the LED light that she purchased have three leads; a positive (red), a negative(black) and a ground. Any suggestions as to how to hook them up? I am going to try to hook the red to the one available lead and connect the black to the frame and see if that works. I apologize if the answer is in a previous thread but I could not find it. The bus is a 1990 International Wayne.

[PNW_Steve]

I just did the same thing and the packaging had the wiring instructions on it. Unfortunately I have tossed the packaging and don't remember.....

[musigenesis]

I have the same lights. Hook the RED lead to whatever bus wire was hooked up to your backup light, and attach the WHITE wire to the bus frame with a screw or whatever. The black lead isn't connected to anything.

[brokedown]

Do you have a link or photo of your new and old lights? Would make it a lot easier to advise.

[rkm767]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

I have the same lights. Hook the RED lead to whatever bus wire was hooked up to your backup light, and attach the WHITE wire to the bus frame with a screw or whatever. The black lead isn't connected to anything.

Thanks. I’ll try that.

[rkm767]

Originally Posted by brokedown

Do you have a link or photo of your new and old lights? Would make it a lot easier to advise.

No link but I’ll get some photos when I get back to the bus tomorrow. Thanks.

[Brad_SwiftFur]

Typical LED taillight wiring:


RED: "Bright" side of lights (brake/turn signals).
BLACK: "Dim" side of lights (Parking/tail lights).
WHITE: Ground.


You are correct, the old ones grounded through the mounting screws. In my case, when I swapped to LED's, I used the grounding points previously used by the 8-way flashers (since I had the inner sheetmetal off, and the 8-way bulbs were removed and had relatively easy access to it.)