How to Replace Taillights 1994-2002 Dodge RAM 1500

Hey friends, it's Len or 1A Auto. Today We're going to be working on our 1996 Dodge Ram 1500. I want to show you something super cool. We're going to be replacing the tail lamp assembly. It's going to be super easy. I can do it and you can do it too. As always, if you need any parts, you can check us out at 1aauto.com. Thanks.

Here we go. We're just going to open up our tailgate real quick. Bring it down nice and easy. Oh, there it is, waiting for us. That's going to look good. Here we go. I'm going to lay this down. I'm going to grab my Torx bit here, this is a T25. It looks like a star. We're going to remove this mounting bolt right there and this one. You can use a ratchet. Use whatever you want. That's what your screw looks like. We'll do this one. Screw number two, same as the first. Now we're just going to grab this, give it a little wiggle. It should want to break free.

Here's our wiring. You have your brake light bulb up top. Okay. Here it is right here. If you want to replace it, just pull it out, take a look at the number. It's a 3157, it's a dual filament. You could take a look at it and see if it looks like either of the filaments are burnt or broken or if the bulb itself just looks like it's darkened in any way. If either of those conditions are present, you'd want to replace it. We'll set that bulb aside.

This one right here is going to be the reverse light. Pull that down. This already has an led module in it. I'm going to keep that in there. I think it's going to look awesome inside the new set. As you can tell, this one has seen its day. I think it's time to swap it out with a brand new one.

Let's do a quick product comparison real quick. Here we are friends. We have our original tail lamp assembly out of our 1996 Dodge Ram 1500, and right here, we have our brand new quality 1A Auto part. Yeah, they have OE look and stuff and it'll probably look almost just about the same as this. That's cool and everything, for its time, but nowadays, if you're not liking this, we might not be in the same boat together. Just kidding. Everybody's got their own thing. You do you booboo. This is for me, so I like it. Let's install it real quick.

You'll notice behind, you have where your reverse light's going to go right here, and then right up here you have this. That leads up to your LEDs and it's going to spark all those up. Okay? It's got this module right here. It's got all the mounting areas. This just going to slide right into the body panel and then we have our mounting clips. That's where the screws are going to go into. It's going to be super easy.

You can start with whichever one you want. I'm going to start with the LED one. That's going to go from my reverse light down there, this one right here. We took the bulb out of it because we have this right here now. That's just going to plug right in here. You just want to make sure that there isn't any corrosion. That looks really good. Just stick it in. Give it a little push. It should click in. Nice little tug. Awesome. We'll just put all those wires in there. We're going to line up the little piton here, or give it a try at least.

Let's take a look at them. Okay. We should talk about it real quick. We have a really fat one right there, and then a thinner one and a thinner one. We've got two thins and a thicker one. For the holes, you got a thick one, thin, thin. Line up your thick one with the thick hole. Theoretically it should go in. There we go. Give that a little twist until it stops. That feels great. This one's nice and tight. We're ready to install it into the vehicle.

We're going to take these and slide them into the holes in the body. Be careful for the paint of course. This particular vehicle, maybe we're not super worried about it but, it couldn't hurt to state it. Just going to start both these screws in. Just make sure they're tight. Awesome. That looks really good. I say we test it out and we'll be able to move along. Let's do a little before and after, go with some running lights, and of course, some brake lights. As you could tell, there's a big difference between the old and the new.

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