Is it legal to re-purpose OEM CHMSL?

eggsalad

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More of a historical question about something I've done in the past. I no longer own anything that didn't come with a factory CHMSL.

But back in the days when I did, I would go to the junkyard and buy the OEM, surface-mount, LED CHMSL that came stock on 80s-90s Chevrolet S-Blazers and Astro vans. It was an easy retrofit on darn near anything. Mounted easily on any flat surface, two holes for screws and one for the wires, and done.

Just out of historical curiosity, was that a legitimate thing to do, or was it a rule-breaker?
 

Alaric Darconville

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But back in the days when I did, I would go to the junkyard and buy the OEM, surface-mount, LED CHMSL that came stock on 80s-90s Chevrolet S-Blazers and Astro vans. It was an easy retrofit on darn near anything. Mounted easily on any flat surface, two holes for screws and one for the wires, and done.

Just out of historical curiosity, was that a legitimate thing to do, or was it a rule-breaker?

Perfectly legitimate, so long as the mounting angles are pretty close to each other.
 

-Virgil-

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Yup, Alaric's right; all you have to do is make sure to mount it at the correct angle (that is, the angle it was designed to be mounted at on its original vehicle) so it distributes the light correctly.
 

Hamilton Felix

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Hella used to sell high level brake lights. I had a pair of high level brake lights inside the rear window of my Saab 99 Turbo (I'm American, so no need to mention the year, 99T was here only in 1978, except for a few rare 1977 pre-production Turbos marked EMS).
 

-Virgil-

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What you mean "used to"...? They have these.

Maybe you mean the 3rd brake light varieties that Hella offered in the past but don't any longer. They had a neon-tube 3rd central brake light, and a kit of two (left/right) high-level brake lights they offered in Germany in the '80s, and probably some others they've discontinued.
 

Hamilton Felix

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Mine was a pair of square red left and right lights, mounted to aluminum tubes having flat fittings at the tips that tucked into the rubber gasket of the rear window at top and bottom. I believe I bought these in the early 1980's before a CHMSL became the norm.
 

-Virgil-

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Yep, that was the kit-in-Germany I was talking about. It was officially legal only in Germany, and boy, did those aluminum-tube mounts and bulky, big cubical lamp housings do a good job of blocking driver vision to the rear! As I recall, depending on the rear windshield angle, you could also get some pretty horrendous red "ghosts" (reflections) at night when you stepped on the brake. And I don't like to imagine what happens to a setup like that in a hard frontal collision (metal tubes and bulky lamps come flying forward). Fortunately Germany didn't press ahead with that type of design, and got on board when the US-type single central high brake light, the CHMSL, was legalized in Europe in the '90s.
 

Hamilton Felix

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This was in the big hatchback window of the 99T. It did not prevent my wife getting lightly rear ended in winter by a pickup. When she flipped the car in 1989, I did not transfer to the replacement (found her a 1982 900T then found myself another gray 99T).

I also replaced my 1993 Suburban with a 1996 after Wife rolled it. Eventually replaced that wife. ;) Always thought the after market missed a bet, not offering LED high level signals in place of the plastic rear corners on those rigs (the plastic was a cap on the rear pillar, having to do with ventilation).

I noticed my 1986 F250 does not have a CMHSL (trucks got 'em later than cars). I find myself wondering if it would be worth replacing its cargo light with a later model combination CMHSL/cargo light, maybe something like I had on my 1995 work Bronco.
 
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