Adding high-tech taillights to your Silverado takes basic tools, no special skills and less than 20 minutes.
The newest, top-of-the-line Chevrolet Silverado trim levels come with high tech LED taillights, but if you have a slightly older truck or a lower-cost model from the current generation, your truck likely has boring, traditional-style lights out back. Fortunately, the team from the AmericanTrucks Chevy & GMC YouTube channel has put together a great do-it-yourself video showing just how easy it is to install complete new taillight designs to your Chevy pickup.
The Introduction
The video begins with host Adam Maqboul explaining the purpose of the video. This DIY applies specifically to 2014 through 2018 Chevrolet Silverado pickups that did not come with factory LED taillights.
Maqboul is installing the Recon LED taillights, which American Trucks sells for $499.95 and to do so, all he needs is a truck, the aftermarket taillights, a ratchet and a T15 Torx bit. Maqboul is using a small electric impact gun, but the taillight bolts are general pretty easy to remove with basic hand tools.
Best of all, the Recon LED taillights are plug-and-play, meaning that there is no wiring required to add the high tech tails to your new Chevy Silverado.
Removing the Stock Lights
As we see in the video above, removing the taillights from a newer Silverado is very simple. You open the tailgate, at which point the two T15 Torx bolts which hold in each taillight are accessible. Once those bolts are removed, the taillight will pop away from the body with a little force and the final step of removal is to twist out the stock bulbs from the factory lens assemblies.
Installing the Recon LED Lights
The Recon LED taillights for the 2014 through 2018 Silverado connect to the body in the same fashion as the stock lenses, with the rubber plugs pushing into place and the T15 Torx bolts secure them down.
Prior to bolting the new lenses in place, you plug the LED conversion harnesses into the stock bulb plugs in the factory wiring harness for the turn signals, brake lights and parking lights, while the back-up lights of the Recon lenses use the same clear bulb as the stock lights. Once you have plugged in the LED conversion harnesses and twisted the back-up light into place, you pop the taillight assembly into place, tighten the T15 Torx bolts and you are done.
The video states that it takes less than 20 minutes to perform this swap, but in most cases, swapping your Silverado taillights won’t even take that long.
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