Raxiom Sequential Tail Light Kit; Plug-and-Play Harness (96-04 Mustang, Excluding 99-01 Cobra)

Video Review & Installation

Hey, guys. Adam here with americanmuscle.com. And today, we're taking a closer look at and installing the Raxiom Sequential Plug and Play Taillight Harness available for all 1996 to '04 Mustangs excluding the 1999 to '01 Cobras. You should be checking this out if you're looking to modernize your rear-end without spending the bigger bucks on a full set of new taillights. This harness is exactly that, it is just a simple harness that converts your factory taillights into a sequential pattern. As you can see here, we've got our hazard lights on our '99 GT and you can see on both sides they're sequencing from the inside out in a one, two, three order. Now these taillights do sequence pretty quickly so you can see it's blinking just like this and the harness is gonna work that way with your hazard lights, turn signals, and when you hit your brake. So when you hit the brake, it'll sequence and hold for the duration of you holding in that brake pedal. For the hazard lights and turn signals, of course, it'll just keep going in the sequence until you turn off the turn signal or hazard lights. Now as far as the harness, it is a direct plug and play, that's the big selling point here guys. You don't have to do any wiring, there's no splicing, there's no swapping anything out, there's no LEDs. You're essentially gonna take the factory bulbs out of their sockets, transfer them into an identical harness and plug them in, only this time in a very specific order. The sockets on the new harness are labeled one, two, three so you know the first one goes here, second in the middle, third one on the outside. You're also gonna get a fourth socket to replace that factory reverse light bulb socket. I will say, guys, some people may not like the speed at which this sequences, does sequence pretty fast. There is a Raxiom turn signal modifier you can pick up separately to slow things down. It goes from blinking this speed to one, two, three, it is pretty simple and it can really change up the way that it's used. It's all personal preference though. Could definitely use the harness as is or pick up that modifier separately, that again, is a very simple plug and play. Now the harness you see here comes in right around 100 bucks between 120, very simple stuff, pretty affordable and very much changes the look. Now if you're looking for something a little more, you can get the sequential harness built into a new set of taillights. There's a couple of options out there like the Axial smoked taillights that include the harness to smoke out that rear end, but if you want to keep the factory taillights and just switch up that sequential harness, this is a great way to do so.Install, one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter. Like I said, tackle it in under 30 minutes. You're not gonna need any real hand tools with the exception of an 11-millimeter deep socket and a ratchet. I'm gonna show you every step of the process, let's get to it. Tools used in this install include a ratchet, 11-millimeter deep socket, panel removal tool. It's also recommended to have a small flat head screwdriver. First step here guys, pop your trunk. You want to remove this trunk liner right around your trunk latch. Now there are four little Christmas tree clips in there, so grab a panel removal tool or something similar and we're gonna pry up on these guys. I like to get them started and then use this hook end to just pull straight back. All right, do that for all four of them. From there, this just pops off and I like to put that right in the trunk there. Next up we have to remove the trunk liner which is this carpeted edge here. There are two little push clips here, there's one on the top left, one on the top right, same exact thing. They do have a little slot in the middle if you want to use a flat head screwdriver, you can get them off that way by twisting them. You can also pry back and kind of work it off by hand. So really what this is doing is screwing onto a threaded stud and it's got some threading on the inside of this plastic. Same thing on the other side. Can also just use a small flat head screwdriver to pull this guy back. From there, we'll lift up and remove your trunk liner. All right, so now we can remove our taillight once you pull back this carpet liner. It'll expose four studs holding 11-millimeter nuts. There's one here, there would be one here, ours broke off, we're missing one here. There's also one top, and then down here. So you're gonna grab an 11-millimeter deep socket and you're gonna break them loose and then you can typically get them off by hand. Once you have those off, we're gonna disconnect this harness. This is your taillight harness, so you're gonna pull back on this tab here and pull up on the wire. What are you gonna do is basically push from the inside out and pull from the outside toward you. And you'll disconnect this grommet. Just like that, pull it straight back. All right, so now we're looking at the back of our taillight, factory harness still installed with our bulbs, and I'm holding our Raxiom sequential harness. You can see, almost identical. The only difference being three of the bulbs are labeled one, two, three, of course, that's the sequence. When we install the new sockets into the old housing, we want to make sure we're installing them in that order. The sequence is gonna start from the middle and work its way out, one, two, three. So that's how we want to install our sockets. Now there is a fourth socket and that's, of course, your reverse light and that'll go up toward your reverse light. So basically what we're gonna do is one by one, pop a bulb socket out, unplug the bulb, transfer it over to the one, and then install that. Simple as that. Now this new harness has a couple of extra wires, of course, to operate the sequence. It's also got to resistor built-in. No big deal, they are the only differences with between the two kits. So let's get started. First thing we're gonna do, twist and remove bulb number one and hold the bulb number one socket. Pull that guy out, pull out the factory bulb, transfer it over. It'll seat right in the housing. All right. So number two, do the same thing. Now the reason I like doing it this way is that way you don't get any of the bulbs confused as far as what's a taillight, what's a reverse light. It's pretty straightforward. Doing this to the last one, that'll go in the number three. And then finally your reverse light is the only one that does not have a number on it. Perfect. Now this factory harness is loose, you can set that aside. Take your new harness and install it the exact same way. And like I said, you want to go one toward the inside of the vehicle, sits right in, and then you twist. Two is in the middle, three is on the far outside. And then lastly, reverse light. There you have it. So now what we can do is take the resistor and that can be tucked up into the top. That'll tuck right up there. And if you'd like, you can even tape it down. From here, you can grab the harness and it has a new grommet built-in, so you're gonna feed that into the hole and plug that grommet, just like that. Line up the studs and install your taillight. Perfect. Grab those factory 11-millimeter nuts and tighten them down from the inside. Guys, before we go any further, you want to take your harness and plug it right into the factory harness. From there, you want to go back in the vehicle and test out your lights. You want to make sure that they're sequencing in the right pattern. You want to make sure all the bulbs are working properly and that the harnesses are working as well. If they do not sequence in the correct order, you want to take your taillight out and figure out which way they need to be adjusted. If it's blinking from the middle to the outside and then the inside, obviously that's not the right sequence, go back and reposition your bulbs, try again. All right, guys, we tested our lights, they're working properly, so what we're gonna do now is take the 11-millimeter nuts and put them back on the studs. All right, once you have them back on, I like to grab the socket, just make sure they're nice and snug and then we can tighten them down. All right, once you have all those tightened down, repeat this exact same process on the other side. Well, guys, that's gonna wrap up my review and install for the Raxiom Sequential Plug and Play Taillight Harness for all '96 to '04 Mustangs excluding the 1999 to '01 Cobras. If you want to pick up just the harness itself, plug and play install, making it super easy, you can do so exclusively right here at americanmuscle.com.