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Third brake light mods

mikematos.mm

Full Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2018
Messages
11
Location
New Jersey
Today I installed the smooth sails, saddle doors, vents, and third brake light from an Escalade EXT.  My 2008 black AVALANCHE  looks great. Question, does anyone know if the led third brake light is plug and play?  The break light plugged in to my Avalanche Wiring harness.  The problem is that the brake light does not come on when I hit the brake pedal. Taillights work.  Any help is appreciated.  Thanks.
 
Does the 2008 AV have the narrow (small light) or the full size of the 2013 or Cadillac EXT?
If it has the small one you can't just replace the bulb, you would need to replace the bulb, upper cladding, inner and outer sail panel cladding as well as side storage box covers and in some cases tailgate trim to avoid gaps.
There are many older threads about changing AV for EXT cladding and brake light setups on this site with photos and info. As a general range it will cost you about $1,500 in parts plus painting and then labor. If doing it yourself you will also need cladding clips and 3M tape to install new parts.
 
The upper cladding, Saddle bag covers, vents, sail panels and light & cover are the same for all model years. The bed covers and tailgate are slightly different.

So you can swap the upper panels over fine.

There is a difference when talking about the thin light with textured cover and the wide light with smooth cover and sail panels.

If you are talking about upgrading from the thin light to the wide light then you must also upgrade the textured covers and sail panels to the smooth ones. Or be creative with fabrication...
 
Just a note: The smooth EXT style cladding is different than the texture. They are not all the same if you want the EXT 3RD brakelight you have to swap it all as Vaeagleav stated, unless you like BIG Gaps
 
redheadedrod said:
The upper cladding, Saddle bag covers, vents, sail panels and light & cover are the same for all model years.
False, all 2013's were smooth and painted. To go from 2008 to 2013 you need to swap the light and top trim, inner and outer sails at the least. Bag lids and corner vents too if you don't want the huge reveal.
 
Calicak89 said:
False, all 2013's were smooth and painted. To go from 2008 to 2013 you need to swap the light and top trim, inner and outer sails at the least. Bag lids and corner vents too if you don't want the huge reveal.

You pulled out PART of the message I wrote... if you read the whole message you will see I mentioned the thin and wide lighting being different. So please, if you are going to bash my messages atleast do it properly...

The upper cladding for ANY year will still fit ANY year regardless with the exceptions noted.. ie the tailgate cladding.

The top cladding comes in two styles, smooth and textured. The Textured style comes with the thin third brake light and the smooth comes with the wide third brake light.
You can NOT mix and match the sail panels and top piece surrounding the third brake light as they match up differently for these different styles. But again, the actually cladding its self will fit any year truck as they only changed the tailgate from 2002-2013. (The tail gate handle is integrated into the top piece in the later years. Don't know if they physically match up or not.

Note I mentioned as thin and wide third brake lights because you can find the textured cladding where someone had it smoothed out and painted. We have a LOT of Avalanches around me and a number of them had the cladding smoothed out and repainted. I wouldn't be surprised if we have the highest density of Avalanches in the country here in Grand Rapids Michigan and surrounding area.

I can't go anywhere without seeing multiple Avalanches. But then again we get a crap load of snow around here, especially along the lake shore. The UP gets more but we still get a bunch of "Lake effect" snow.
 
redheadedrod,
read the original post.
mikematos.mm said:
Has anyone replace third brake light on 2008 Avy with a 2013 Avy led brake light?
He didn't ask about any year or other years or any other lights or textures of cladding .He asked can an 08' light be swapped for a 13' light.
The answer is NO, not without significant number of other 13' pieces. Plain and simple. Your statement that "The upper cladding, Saddle bag covers, vents, sail panels and light & cover are the same for all model years." is incorrect, they are not the same. End of story.

On a side note, I've said this before and I'll say it again. You can be a valuable asset to this community, obviously you have significant knowledge of the Avalanche but your constant skewing of threads off topic and/or providing 5 paragraphs of personal background not relevant to the original post and/or topic is what seems to aggravate others here. I usually appreciate your input, and no one (at least not myself) is here to attack you, but when you present information that is not 100% accurate I (as well as others) feel the need to refute and/or correct that information. I respond to your posts no different than I do any other members here.

Stay on topic and relay information pertinent to the question/topic at hand, that's all we ask.

 
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