Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
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Hey, guys. It's Joe from AmericanTrucks. And today, we're gonna be taking a closer look at the Axial Smoked Chrome LED Taillights, fitting all '09 to '18 Ram 1500s. Now these are gonna be a great option for you if you're looking for a budget-friendly plug-and-play tail light that's going to add some seriously modern chrome and LED styling to the rear of your Ram. So what do we have here going on with the Axial taillights? Well, each of these are gonna feature 15 bright red LEDs, they're definitely gonna get you noticed, exactly what you want out of a brake light. The car behind you is going to see these as soon as you step on the brakes, so not only an upgrade in the looks department but the safety department as well. Now the LED conversion is completely handled on board, so these are gonna be plug-and-play and even get a brand new marker light on the side here for some added safety. Now also adding to the modern styling here, we have a very, very lightly smoked lens over a chrome housing, we're gonna get these side by side next to the factory lights in just a second here, and you're gonna see how much of an upgrade these are in the looks department. And they really match our '14 Ram here perfectly. This truck was going for the silver and black look and these are a perfect fit. Now one of the things that sometimes goes overlooked here are the things you can't see, right? So build quality, fit and finish, and I just wanted to say these are really, really a high-quality piece at this price point. Fit and finish is bar none, the quality of the plastics here, we're using the same weatherproofing seals as factory and that all comes together to make these DOT and SAE compliant, so no matter what state you live in, these are gonna pass inspection every time. Now if these aren't particularly your taste, Axial understands and they offer these in a bunch of different combinations as well. There's the black, red or chrome housings, and on top of all of those, you have the choice of either the smoked or chrome lens, so whatever is going to match your truck perfectly Axial definitely offers. If you were looking at complete look Axial even offers a third brake light up there which you can probably see looks perfectly factory. If you wanted to swap that out too, Axial also has you covered. Now pricing for the pair here, we're looking at around 350 bucks, now for a plug-and-play taillight with fit and finish like this bill quality like this, that is one heck of a deal. Axial even throws in a one-year warranty, so if you have any problems with these you are completely covered. Definitely well worth the money. As far as the install goes this is gonna be really easy. As you guys probably could've guessed. These are completely plug-and-play. There's only two T25 Torx bolts holding the taillight housings in, we're gonna get those out of the way and it's pretty much a straight swap from there. One out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter, at most this should take you 30 minutes to an hour to get completely wrapped up on your truck. So without any further ado, let me show you what tools you'll need and how it's done. Tools required for this install are going to be a ratchet, T25 Torx bit, trim panel removal tool, and a pair of pliers. So first step to our install here, we gotta grab a T25 Torx bit, there's two Torx bolts that hold on the taillight housing to the bed rail here. So what we're gonna do is drop the tailgate that'll allow you access to those two bolts and we can get them out of the way. I have my Torx bit on a ratchet here just to speed things up a little bit. So now we should be able to grab our taillight housing, you want to pull this straight back and off of the truck. There's two clips on the outside edge here and they're slotted straight back. Now we're just gonna turn the harnesses counter-clockwise and that will release them out of the housing and we can pull this out of the way as well. So now we need to remove these two plastic clips over here on the side. As you can see, the top one is a little bit broken, that's okay our new taillights come with new plastic clips so if you break these on the way out, doesn't really matter too much. What I'm gonna do here is just take a pair of pliers, compress the backside of those a little bit, and I'm just gonna push them out. This one is putting up a little bit of a fight, so another tool you might be able to use here is a trim panel removal tool, just get behind that and get some leverage and that should pop right out. So now we're just gonna take our new taillight and we're gonna get this installed, this is a really easy process. First thing we're gonna do, peel back this dust cover for the reverse light, we can put that aside and we're just gonna take our reverse light harness with the bulb still installed. We're gonna put that in and just give it a twist clockwise to lock that into position. Now our Axial brake light is going to be just a hair different, I'm just gonna support that with my knee. Now we're not gonna be reusing this bulb, right? Because we're switching over to LEDs, so feel free to grab that, put it aside. All we're gonna be doing is plugging in this new plug-and-play harness right to the harness on our truck. Now one thing to note, the colors on this wire here, we have a red, we have a green, we have two blacks, you want to make sure the blacks line up with the other black wires on the factory harness on our truck here, so just gonna flip that over and plug that right in. You can see our black wires here go through the harness on the left too. They stay on the left all the way up to the top here where they meet up with the other black wires. If these don't work right of the gate that is usually your problem. Now that we have that installed, we're just gonna take that, plug her into our housing here, give it a clockwise twist, and that is gonna seal it. We're gonna push this in, make sure all the wires are clear. Now we have these two clips that are gonna line up with the two holes on the side, so you just want to push those in. At this point, it's pretty much installed, do a test run, make sure these fire up correctly, and then you can reinstall those two T25 bolts on the inside edge. So now we have one side completely installed with our new Axial taillight, I figured now would be the perfect time to put the two side by side and point out some of the key differences and similarities between the factory taillight and our new Axial taillight. First of which, is gonna be the most obvious, we're dropping that regular old incandescent bulb in that reflector housing for 15 bright LEDs and that is going to seriously up the presence on the rear of your truck with something like this and it's gonna add a lot of modern styling to the rear of your truck. Now other than that, we're also dropping this red lens here with the red housing for that smoked lens with the chrome housing which again is just gonna help up that modern presence toward the rear of your truck. And personally, this looks great on the rear of our '14 Ram, we kind of went with that silver blackout look which fits these perfectly with the chrome and the smoked lens on there, definitely a match made in heaven between this taillight and our '14 Ram. Our new Axial unit, and it's hard to convey this on camera, but this feels right up to par with our factory taillight in terms of build quality, the quality of the plastics, the weight of the thing and the seals we're using are gonna be straight from the factory. And to be honest, I haven't done any long term testing but I have complete confidence that this is gonna be a nice weathertight unit, those LEDs are gonna last you a long time and this is going to be a great, great option and I would not worry about the build quality at all with this new Axial taillight. Now other features that we're keeping from our factory taillight, this reflector area right here, you could see it kind of comes in this strip and that opens up a little bit. We're keeping that right on the front here, we do have that reflector strip and the side is a little bit different, we have sort of these four lines right here that's just gonna keep you that safety feature, having that reflector on the side is a nice touch. Now one more thing in terms of similarities, that reverse light as you saw, that's gonna be a direct transfer over, so that's gonna be the same exact thing. That incandescent bulb in the reflector housing is gonna stay pretty much the same but with that chrome underneath our lens here, I think it fits perfectly. So now let's grab our Axial taillight here, we're gonna head over to the other side and do the same exact thing. So just like the other side, we're gonna remove those two T25s then we can pull out our factory housing. Now we have our new taillight housing here and just like the other side, just gonna remove that dust cover and the reverse light is gonna drop right in. Now for our Axial brake light, just gonna remove the regular old bulb, make sure our black wires line up, plug that right in, and do the same thing and give that a clockwise twist to lock it in. Then we can remove the clips on the side of our truck so we can make room for our new clips and we're just gonna line those up and click them into place, then we can come over here, grab our two T25 bolts and tighten them down. Now, guys, that is gonna do it for my review and install of the Axial Smoked Chrome LED Taillights, fitting all '09 to '18 Ram 1500s. Thank you guys for watching. If this video helped you out in any way, leave us a comment down below, we'd love to know. Subscribe for more videos like this one. And keep it right here at AmericanTrucks for all things Ram.
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Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
Tail Lights Style | Custom Style |
Tail Light Type | LED |
Tail Light Lens Color | Smoked |
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Fitment:
CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
What's in the Box
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