Has anybody fitted or had fitted a rear fog light on an mk1 import for the MOT?
Inside the O/S rear light or the external on the bumper.
How easy is it to do and what’s the process?
Any help would be appreciated before I dive in!
Regards
Anthony
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One method is converting the offside reversing light to rear fog, saves having a brick hanging off the back.
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This is how I want to do it. I wonder how hard it is? I noticed there is 2 reversing lights!
Converting the offside reversing lamp to a fog light using a coloured bulb is straightforward. I think strictly it doesn’t conform with distance regulation, but I don’t think anyone has a problem
Or you get a standard universal “brick” and attach it via a bracket to the rear bumper (drilling a hole in it), or fitting the bracket to the black plastic bumper beam with a self tapper. Another approach is to just use the offside towhook/tiedown bracket. Some people will attempt to imitate the UK foglight by cutting a square hole in the bumper, to semi-recess the lamp. It you take off the bumper, on the flip side you can see lines showing where to cut. I wouldn’t do this.
Reverse light converted. It passed MOTs, but as foglights go, it was lousy, ie not very red
On the 96.
Admittedly this was a temporary fitment when a new bumper was fitted…4 years ago. I really want to make a virtue of this, and go for a whop off big round one, a la 1970s BMWs. Unfrtunately the lamps are hard to find and go for big bucks. I have an idea involving a vintage style chrome rectangular lamp. But its a low priority right now.
Whatever setup you decide on (the blue car is the easiest, and you can, at your own risk, take it off between MOTs), what you MUST make sure you do is fit a swithc with an illuminated TellTale. You can get a Mazda switch; MX5parts sell them, which I believe is technically an early 323F switch, as it has a light in the switch (Mk1 MX5 switches illuminated a telltale on the dash), or just fit one of the many generic ones, uusally using one of the switch blanks by your right knee.
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Thank you so much for all this info. Wiring I suppose is the fun bit and running wires!
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You run the wires along the transmission tunnel/
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If you do go for the generic “brick” foglight I’d only add a caution from previous experience that the lamp suffers more from exposure to road spray if it’s mounted by its bracket standing off the bumper rather than recessed into a cut in the bumper like a UK model. My first Roadster came with a foglight bolted to the bumper and over the years I had to replace it more than once due to corrosion of its internals. Although I tried to make sure each new lamp was sealed it never really worked so eventually I gave up just replacing it, cut a rectangular slot where the bolt hole had been and fitted a new lamp into the recess, screwed to the black plastic beam behind. That one survived.
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Echoing what’s been said on using the right hand reversing light, it’s quite easy to unclip the reversing light feed wire from the chocolate block wiring connector it comes from (near the battery) I used quite a powerful red LED bulb which you can’t see when it’s off but gives off a very bright light when used for the fog. All very OEM looking from the outside.
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Thank you
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I have one car converted reversing light with and LED brake light bulb and aftermarket switch.
The other car has a rectangular square LED mounted onto the rear crash plastic with the outer bumper cut. it is mounted on a flat area just off centre to the right hand side with an OEM foglight switch fitted.
The reversing light conversion will pass the MOT
The square Led will make sure you are seen in fog and wet weather.
I ran wire through the drivers side conduit just inside the sill cover, undo the stainless kick plate and unhook the carpet clips and you will find a plastic conduit.
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Hi I’ve done this too; such a small car doesn’t need two reverse lights, my larger car only has one so I did the conversion using the wiring from the brick under the bumper to using the driverside reverse light socket in the bulb cluster.
So so much neater and I’d never go cutting into the rear bumper when there’s this option!
I got a couple of LED bulbs from eBay (one as spare) which look clear when off but shine red.
The thing is it never shone bright and has slowly deteriorated.
Can you direct me to where you got your LED Red bulb please as otherwise I’ll just be gambling on the brightness of the next one again lol. Sounds like your one shines bright and works a treat?
It was a while ago but I’m pretty sure it was from this vendor on eBay, they’re not the cheapest but if you contact them they are very good at advising what to buy:
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The last one I did was to convert the high level brake light to a fog. Using diodes it was dual use (not an MOT pass) but for MOT fit a switch in the boot that turns off the Brake light circuit
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