Hi, kids, I am Randy. Not Randy as in Austin Powers' favorite saying-"I'm randy, baby"-but my name is Randy. It is a shortened form of Randolph. Anyway, the wise editors of this magazine thought I might have something to add to this great book and gave me this page to help explain some electrical stuff.
Seeing as how there is a story in this issue about LED taillights ("Death to Filaments," page 46), I thought I'd talk about how to make them work correctly. Well, that is, they work good. Why else would you put them in your Jeep? What I am talking about is making them flash right.
I am not talking about flashing like when Crab Man was telling us about his days back in the big city and that weird guy in the trench coat, I am talking about when the light goes on/off/on/off/on. You know, like when you use your turn signal or hazard lights.
See, the thing is, the LED has less resistance than a regular lightbulb. And that's a good thing because it lights up faster, but it means your Jeep now signals like it is on a 48-hour Mountain Dew caffeine kick.
Not to worry though. I talked to some of the truck drivers down at the Crab Shack and picked up some pointers on how to make the new LED lights flash at the normal speed.
Pre-'97 Jeeps use a simple two- or three-prong round flasher (right). And by "prong," I don't mean those big, cheap shrimp. I'm talking about the number of connectors on the bottom of the flasher. Just go to the parts store and buy a $10 electronic replacement (left), and you are all done. | 
From 1997-'00, the Jeep guys changed it. They started using a four-prong flasher. This one is easy to fix. Pull the cover off of it like you were shucking corn, and cut the trace as shown (inside the circle). It really is that easy. Then un-shuck it and put it back in the Jeep. | 
For '01-'06 Jeeps, they changed again. The flasher can be found in the steering column, and now you have to solder in a relay like I did here to slow the blinking lights down. I learned how to do it from www.mesa4x4.com, but if you aren't good at soldering, you can buy a new flasher already modified from Off Road Only. |