Breeze Gets a Facelift (Part 3)

And I’ve saved the biggest piece of work for last (well, almost last…): the addition of two rectangular tail lights and the replacement of the existing tail lights and running lights on the back. I knew this would be a big job, and beyond my rudimentary skills working with wires and splices, so I was happy that my friend Jim volunteered for the task. (He might be rethinking our campfire conversation that started out as “hmm, those big tail lights sure look nice…”

The Back Story

When I picked up my Alto way, way back in 2016, the tail lights were above the back window. Easy for truckers to see, but not so easy for drivers in cars and pickups. So… a few years ago, I started seeing newer Altos sporting tail light bars lower down on the back wall, right about where normal drivers would see them easily. I’ll admit it, I instantly had a serious case of “rectangular tail light envy” and it never really eased up. I mean, it’s not like I had any close calls but drivers do tend to tailgate trailers (don’t ask me why) so I wanted an extra set of lights to be part of my “tapping the brakes” strategy to get them to back off. And, honestly, more lights are always gonna be safer.

The Planning Phase

So there we were, Jim and I sitting next to each other at a campfire at Watkins Glen in late May. I mention how much I like those new lights because OF COURSE the people hosting this particular campfire have them on *their* Alto. About 10 minutes later, Jim turns to me and says it can’t be that hard to splice them into the existing wiring. Just a few holes to be drilled in the back wall, easy peasy. I kind of winced at the mention of splicing because wire-stripping and splicing are two skills I haven’t (yet) mastered, as any close inspection of my rearview camera wiring will show. I mentioned I already have some splicing work ahead because one of my four-inch tail lights is fading (LED lights go out one by one and the “always on” one was becoming less and less dependable over the last several months). Another few minutes of silence from Jim and he starts explaining what sounds like a three-way merge of red, black, and white wires. I nod as if I totally get what he’s saying, and realize he’s got the whole thing mapped out in his head. And then he seals the deal by saying it can’t be that hard, we could do it when we meet up in a campground in Quebec the next month. I just need to bring all the parts.

Over the next week, I create a parts list (because I am a project manager at heart, people!) and sent it off to Jim for review. He makes a few changes and suggestions, and then I order the whole list and arrange to have it sent to my friends, Jack and Lee, in Virginia, because they are also going to be at that Quebec campground the next month.

Jim, working overtime, finds the exact rectangular lights that the Safari Condo team uses, and I order two of those to be sent to Viriginia as well. Jack, always helpful, throws in a string of butyl tape because, well, it’s really handy stuff for making watertight seals.

A few weeks later, Jack confirms the orders have made it to Virginia, ready to go in their Ridgeline for the trip up to Quebec. (Yes, Ridgelines are popular with Alto owners. I bought mine because I liked theirs so much.)

The one thing I still needed to acquire was a set of two-inch running lights above the existing tail lights. They’ve been slowly fading from red to dull orange so I decided to replace all of them as long as we were messing around back there. For easy replacement, I bought the exact same lights from the Safari Condo online store because they had the exact same connectors so no splicing required. I figured Jim is doing me a solid with the three-way splicing, let’s not complicate things with more splices, shall we? I picked up the lights at the same time I got the shades/screens and window.

The Delivery Phase

(Let’s skip ahead a month because, honestly, June plays very little into this whole story.)

So now it’s mid-July and we all show up at La Jolie Rochelle, a lovely little campground in rural Quebec. I’ve got my new running lights in a plastic bag, sitting in the back seat. Jack unearths the box of parts from the trunk of the Ridgeline, which is a feat because that truck was packed full. I open it immediately, eager to see all my cool purchases. We’re ready to go!

The Execution Phase

At 9AM on Wednesday, Jim was sitting at the picnic table, happily splicing wires from tail light to the 6-foot runs I’d bought to close the gap from light to wiring panel. With that done, it was time to start modding the Alto. There’s really no way to explain the feeling of a half-inch drill making a hole in the back of your trailer. I honestly didn’t look so I don’t have photos of that!

I have a nice Bosch drill (thanks for the recommendation, Steve!) and a Dremel in my tool box, as well as a lot of drill bits, screwdrivers, and other implements of construction. We used all of that and a fair amount of ingenuity on the part of Jim and Alex. I mostly just watched them work together, learning a lot about techniques and improvisation in problem-solving some challenges in the project.

From drilling the hole for wires to go inside, feeding them into the wire loom, and then screwing the light in place, it was a lot of little steps. I call this next photo “how many Alto hands does it take to screw on a light?” and the answer is four hands, three people 🙂

Look at that pretty light bar! The outside was all done except for the finishing touch of some clear silicon on top, to make the seal between light and Alto.

While Jim was busy splicing the lights inside the Alto, Alex got to work outside, removing the seven lights we were replacing (I saw “we” but it was really them, to be honest…). Here’s the old lights. Look at how much adseal sealant remains after seven years of being out in the weather every single day. None of these lights ever leaked – that’s quality assembly right there.

Here’s Alex putting the finishing touches on one of the four-inch tail lights. I don’t know what Jim is doing. Maybe he’s checking his phone for a job offer from the Safari Condo production line…

I spent a lot of the time at the feet of the masters, absorbing tips and techniques and tricks of the trade.

Some Tech Tips and Tricks

Need to splice? Two words: Wago connectors. These things are SLICK! At Jim’s recommendation, I bought a starter pack that had two-way, three-way, and five-way splices. We ended up using Wagos for all the splicing because they just work and they are super-easy to use. Basically, you insert the stripped end of a wire into one compartment and lock it down. There’s a metal bar at the end that then connects all the stripped wires. No soldering, no wire nuts, it’s really cool.

The wires for the new lights go inside the Alto from about bed level to up high where the wiring panel is. To hide (and protect) them, we used wire loom and then some sticky fasteners and zip ties to secure the wire loom to the black molding already in place. The wire loom goes through the hole about a 1/4 inch into the back of the tail light to ensure the wires don’t fray against the aluminum hold. It makes for a very smooth look inside the Alto – I don’t see the wire loom unless I really look for it.

In the end, we used everything on the parts list except for the solder seal wire connectors. Also, when you pull out the little running lights, look at how the plug went into the light because there is a + and – to those things. I pulled the first one out and didn’t look, but a multimeter helped solve that little mystery.

The Reveal

Finally, it was time to plug the seven-pin into the Ridgeline and light it up (that’s the only way you can “turn on” these lights. Oh, so pretty!!! (The photo at the top of this post is my newly lit Alto in a parade of Altos on the way to the Safari Condo Grand Rassemblement – thanks to Richard and Alissa Levenberg for the photo!)

The job wasn’t complete without a little Safari Condo logo, carefully added by Jim and Alex a few days later.

Every time I walk behind my Alto and see all my new lights, I grin. No more worries about that one tail light or the fading running light on the left side! And maybe it was just my imagination, but I felt like people were staying farther back whenever I stopped in traffic on the way from Quebec to Maine, my first big outing with the new lights.

Thank you so much, Jim and Alex, for spending some interesting hours getting my new lighting all done up so nicely. I learned a lot. Maybe not enough to do it on my own, but I think I could if I had to. And I have a lot of Wago connectors (excellent!), a fair amount of wire loom, and way too many tiny zip ties and black mounts. Spare parts are always useful though, so I’m sure I’ll find good uses for them over time.

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Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” 

Graham Greene, The Wind in the Willows

… or messing about with Altos.

Me