Adding a Third Brake Light to my Volvo P1800

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Cars in the 60s or 70s don’t have third brake light. Not until the 80s, third brake light was introduce to car and become mandatory in some countries.

I am not sure if the previous owner added 3rd brake light to my Volvo P1800 or not, but there is none when I got the car. It is required by Malaysia law to have all cars having a third brake light, and for safety reason, I think it is important to have one as well.

I have been searching and browsing quite a bit for a suitable or nice looking third brake light for my Volvo. There are many cheap LED one available in various designs. There are long line type, box type, window stick on type…etc.

I finally decides on the straight line type after deep consideration. I chose the 34 LED model which is around 24cm in length. There are shorter models and longer model, but I think 24cm is just nice. I even did mockup before purchasing.

The price is really cheap, RM7.30 for the LED + RM4.90 shipping.

I received the brake light after 10 days. Delay was caused by the courier not the seller. I immediately tested it using a 12v power adapter. Not working. I was quite disappointed. Spent some time and end up finding that it was my own mistake as there is + – polar for the LED. Viola! It is working just fine!

After gotten home, I was trying to install the LED to my car rear dashboard. The placement and length are just fine, but I couldn’t find access to route the wire from the rear brake light to the rear dashboard.

Took another day for me to figure it out and found the access at the inner Upper part of the boot.

Installation was quite easy and straight forward.

The wiring is still exposed, as I don’t want to drill on the dashboard. I will blackout the red wire to make it not so obvious, and I do plan on tinting the glass darker.