Tail Light Conversion (Phase 1 to Phase 2/3)
Hello and welcome to another half-baked guide courtesy of John Blackmore! Please remember that I am dyslexic and can not spot my own spelling or grammatical mistakes so give me a break and just let me know if you spot anything wrong.
Introduction
A popular conversion to brighten up the look of your phase 1 306 from the rear is to put on a set of newer style tail lights. Luckily the phase 2 and 3 306's have exactly the same sized and shaped tail light clusters so swapping them over is pretty straight forward, as they will just slot right in. The problem comes when you try to wire them up. Unforunately the connectors used on the newer 306 models are completely different from the older ph1 units so it's not as easy as just plug-and-play. Detailed below is what you need to know about getting your fancy new tail lights working on your phase 1 306.
What you need
A set of new style tail lights
These can be bought from a lot of places including eBay or your local scrapyard. The most important thing to remember is that you need the wiring connectors and as much of the loom as you can get. Make sure you can get the connectors and the loom before you buy the lights!
If you already have the lights but not the connectors with a bit of luck your local scrapyard will have a phase 2 or 3 306 lying around and if you ask them nicely they might even let you snip the plugs off for free (remember to ask nicely)
Tools and Accessories
If you are taking on this conversion and you have no intention of using your old lights in the future you're going to need something to cut the wires from the original plugs so a set of wire cutters is probably your safest bet there. You will also need to reconnect the wires from your car to the connectors on the new tail lights. This is where personal preference comes in to play. I personally used a ratchet crimper and some electrical crimping joiners, which offers a good solid connection and a semi-permanent connecting solution. If you are after a cleaner and more professional finish you may choose to solder the wires together and use heatshrink to cover the connections. For a quick and dirty fix one of my favourite ways to wire up car electrics is by using snap-fit connectors (also known as Scotch-Lok connectors).
If you think that at some point in the future you might want to put the phase 1 light clusters back in I would advise that you use snap-fit connectors and wire your new light cluster plugs into the existing loom leaving the original plugs intact. That way you can easily disconnect the newer loom and still have your original connectors in place.
Getting started
For the rest of this article I will be using the terms near-side and off-side to describe what is being done. This guide is based on a UK-spec Peugeot 306 that is right hand drive so the term 'near-side' refers to the left hand (passenger) side of the vehicle and 'off-side' refers to the right-hand (drivers) side of the vehicle. I believe that the wiring on the Peugeot 306 is also the same on the left hand drive versions as used in continental Europe, so for any readers who have a left hand drive car please try and think in terms of left and right (I hope that makes sense, it confuses me).
Step 1 - Remove the original tail lights.
The nice thing about taking out the 306 tail lights is that you need no special tools. Open up your boot and take a look round at the panel on the back of your off-side (drivers) tail light.
It should be held in place by two black plastic wing nuts and undo by just using your fingers. If the nuts are tight, gently lean against the light cluster from the outside of the car and the weatherstrip should flex enough to loosen the wing nut.
Once you have both nuts undone remove the panel and carefully disconnect the wiring plugs. Gently remove the light cluster from the outside of the vehicle and put it somewhere safe.
Now move over to the near-side and repeat the process. If you don't want to keep the phase 1 light clusters you dont need to be so carefull, so hurling them towards a bin is as good as putting them somewhere safe.
Step 2 - Re-wiring the tail light loom.
Before we dive in and start chopping wires it would be a good idea to look at what each of them does. The way that Peugeot mark their wiring is similar to a number of manufacters and consists of using different coloured wire insulation to define which wire is which. As there are only a limited number of colour combinations there are also some wire number-codes that are printed near the ends of each wire. Shown in the tables below are the colour combinations and wire codes along with the function that wire performs.
<table coming soon!>
The off-side cluster has two connectors, the larger one contains all the wiring for both near-side and off-side light functions. The smaller connector passes the relevent connections to the near-side cluster.
The near side cluster also has two connectors. The larger one is the lighting feed from the off-side cluster and the small 2-pin connector leads to the number plate illumination lights mounted in the bumper.
The phase 2/3 off-side cluster has just one 7-way connector that contains all the neccessary wiring to control that cluster. On phase 2/3 models there is no pass-through plug to the near-side cluster, this is why some of the connector pins have more than one wire connected to them.
You can see from the close up the pins are numbered 1 to 7 from the left when you look at the end of the plug and the spring loaded retaining clip is at the top. Note - pin 6 is not connected on the off-side cluster.
The phase 2/3 near-side cluster also has a 7-way connecter similar to the off-side.
The close up reveals the numbering is the same as the off-side, but on the near-side it is pin 2 that is not connected.
Step 3 - Fitting the new style lights.
Fitting the new lights should be no harder than removing the old ones, and the process is a straight reversal of how you took them out. Start with the near-side cluster and gently seat it in position. Put the black plastic panel on the back from the inside of the car making sure you do not trap any of the wires against the metal bodywork. Attach the wing nuts and tighten as far as you can with your fingers.
Check that the weathertrip is sealed around the light fitting so that water can not get in. If the weatherstrip is not sealed gently lean on the light cluster from the outside whilst tightening the wing nut with your fingers. Repeat the process on the off-side light cluster, again remembering to take special care not to trap any of the wiring and to make sure the light cluster is sealed correctly.
Step 4 - Test and finish
The last thing to do is to test once again that all of the lights are functioning correctly. If everything is working as it should, congratulations! If you find that one of the lights is not working or that the wrong bulb has lit up you will need to go back and check your connections from Step 2.
Good Luck!
