Grzldvt

I want to document this in case someone else goes down this route.
I picked up the GM Euro tailights and harness part number 15271189. It is NOT Plug-N-Play on my car. The plug on the Euro harness is different.
Here is the Euro plug:


And here is the plug in my car - Note the plug openings in the Euro harness are lined up, and the American plug is offset. Plus the American plug has the guides at the top of the plug and the Euro does not have any.





The Euro plug has an eighth wire - Orange running into it, and as a guess it is for the fogs, since the plugs appear to be for the inner lights. My plug has a hole for the eight, but no wire.

I found one post where someone said they hooked up the Euro harness with no problems. Has anyone bought the PFYC or MAD kits or the Euro harness? I would be curious as to the part number of that harness or what the plug looked like.

I want all 4 lights to come on for brakes and the turn signal from the amber in the Euro. It appears as though the American harness can be reworked to get the Euro's tailamps working with the lower portion, but would be much simpler if I can locate the american harness plug and splice it into the Euro harness. I have already modified the Euro harness to work the American inner lights/brakelights. In fact I have learned enough that I could have the inner's also be Euro, like the C5 and get them to work the same way. But that does require the unique plugs to be spliced in, and I don't have a clue as to where I can get just the plugs.

I am going to see if I can pick up a second American harness and take it apart.
Just in case someone else knows....
On the left side the American harness has three wires running into the tail light, black brown and yellow, on the right, black, brown and green. On the Euro the yellow and green are sent to the turn signal and a blue is the third wire going into the upper portion for lights/brakes. I suspect the blue is for brake lights.
Somewhere in the American harness I think the blue is melded into the yellow and green.
Can anyone confirm this?
If nothing else, it has been a great experience digging into this and figuring out how some of this car works and is getting me to buy the manuals.

Miaugi

On the C5's there was a "custom" (not OEM) harness that was needed to get the Euro's to properly operate, and there was a (white) wire at the base of the steering column that needed to be cut as well. I would think the C6 would be similar albeit maybe not identical. Good luck with it.

Grzldvt

C6 is altogether a different beast. I have the Euro's on my C5 and that Plug was a direct fit.
Thanks anyway....

Grzldvt

Looks like I am the first to go fown this route......
Anyone?

schwarzbart1

No you are not the first guy. I tried to order all 4 red/amber taillights from pfyc but they changed the offer to the original European solution (2 red/amber and 2 red for the fogs).

Than I saw all posts here and decided to order the stock European lights and harness. There are some guys here who wrote this is just plug'n'play.

Now I ordered all the parts, which are necessary, but the problem is the 2 red/fog lamps are on back order.

My question, what is your problem? Do you try to use the OEM European harness without the fogs? (and change to the red/amber lights instead)

Sebastian

Grzldvt

My problem is the plug that goes into the body harness is not compatible/ NOT plug-n-play, check out the pics in my post. I strongly advise taking a look at your harness, if you have it, because the standard female Euro harness plug I have will NOT plug into the Male plug coming from the body on my car.
Right now I am going to buy a second American Harness and splice the plug into the Euro harness.

I have modified the Euro harness to work the inner lights as standard lights and brake lights.

schwarzbart1

OK now I understand you the only thing which is different is the plug, right? Where can I find the body harness?
Do you have the part number for the American harness?

Another thing. How will you rebuild the harness that it works with 4 red/amber lights?

Sebastian

Grzldvt

If you pull one of the tail lights on the right hand side, the inner one seems to be a better choice, and you look down on the frame, you will see the plug connected to another harness coming out of the interior. It is pretty obvious once you look in there. The entire assembly is held onto a ground screw, and a good tug will pull the assembly off the ground screw and give you easy access to unplug the harness. You can easily push it back onto the ground screw when you are done. I would be very curious to see if you have the same connector I have, or if yours matches the Euro plug.

The part number for the American harness on my car is 15213054, but on GMPartsdirect it changes to 15271188 it looks like there has been a change, on GMPartscheap, it tells me that my number has been superceded by 15271188.
GMPartsdirect appears to show it for purchase, but it is "non-returnable" Before I spend the bux, I would like to see if the plug is compatible with what is coming out of the interior harness.

To get the inner's to act as normal lights/brakelights, I spliced into the ground, light and brakelight wires on the Euro harness and moved the American inner tail lamp clips to the Euro harness. By doing it with bullet connectors, I can easily plug and unlpug things in case something is not working correctly.
Sounds like a pain, but it only took me 15 minutes to do everything. I can take pics of the whole contraption.

I can "bulletize" the two harness's and then once I have it working, seal the connections. But I would prefer not to hack up the original harness.
I am not wondering, if they changed something along the way. My car was built in mid-October and would not be surprised to see a change in plugs after that.

schwarzbart1

Cool tips. Thank you. My car was built in January.
Maybe I should visit you because I hate work on electrical stuff.

If you do the job in the next days please make some pictures.
I have no idea how to do this and the parts are too expensive to buy a lot of them.
I like your idea to use all 4 Euro lights but now I try to change to the original Euro set-up.

I think I have to wait a couple of days, maybe weeks to get the Euro red lamps. I ordered on Gmpartsdirect too and the lights are on back order. I will wait another week and than I write them a mail to ask how long.

But in between I will check the plugs and the harness next weekend and send you the pictures if you want.


Sebastian

Grzldvt

Got them working, with one minor problem I built a jumper from the Euro harness to the body harness using individual wires from a Metra stereo conversion kit. I pulled the wires out of the plastic connector and shortened them down to 1.5 inches. The male ends of the wire fit into the Euro plug, and I bought a small bag of female ends for $2 at Fry's for the body end. Crimped the females on, connected each wire, to each plug and everything is working.
The only issue I have is the amber lights up when I hit the brakes. I suspect it has something to do with the jumpers, but I matched slot for slot, and color for color. Once I get a manual and figure exactly what each wire is doing I think it will be solved.
I do have the inner lights coming on when I hit the brakes or turn the lights on and do not come on with the turn signals. If I can solve the amber brake light situation, I am in!!!!!

schwarzbart1

OK yesterday I checked my harness. You are right. I have the same than you. I can not compare it with the Euro plug but gmpartsdirect sent my stuff last friday and I should receive it this week. I think it will be the same problem because I ordered the same number than you.
I checked the manual for the plugs but I can not find them in there.
In the light topic there are just the taillamps and in the wire topic is a picture which shows the harness but there is nothing about the plugs or the cable colour.
I can not believe why it doesn't work if you changed the plugs and matched the same colours.
Did you make some pictures?

Where are those guys who did the job and told everybody it is plug'n'play?

Grzldvt

I did not take any pictures, but have a few extra wires hanging around so I will take a picture of them so you can see what I did.

I am also curious as to where the people are that have already done this. They are easy enough to find, doing a search, but......

schwarzbart1

You are right nobody here....

Did you figure out everything about your mod? I received my package yesterday. The harness is the same than yours. It doesn't fit with the Euro plug. Tomorrow I try to test the Euro harness on the body harness with cable adapters. I want to make sure the thing works before I cut the plug and rewire the whole thing. Please send some pictures about your work. Maybe it helps me to do the job.

Thanks
Sebastian

Miaugi

Just in case you didn't see this in my previous post....."there was a (white) wire at the base of the steering column that needed to be cut as well." If this wire wasn't cut it had the same results as you are having.

Also I think you made a wise decision staying away from GMPD...they can be awful to deal with if there is any type of problem.

schwarzbart1

There are no problems because all parts we ordered are nonreturnable items.

Sebastian

Grzldvt

I will look, but if I recall I read in one of the posts the infamous white wire was not a problem on the C6 like it was on the C5

schwarzbart1

OK I connected the two plugs with adapters and had a test run.
I figured out the Euro/American plug colours:

yellow - turn signal left
dark green - turn signal right
blue/grey - lights (taillights/plate light, side marker)
light blue - breaklight
orange - rear fog lights *just euro version
black - ground
light brown - ?????

1. The turn signal came on when I steped on the break like yours.
That looks like a software thing. Because one time we used the Euro setup to shut down the DRL I lost my rear break lights too. If we changed it back everything worked fine.

2. The turn signal was too fast. It was like a turn signal on a youngsters Honda. Maybe the reason for that was that I didn"t pluged all the bulps in. I only used the two taillights with the light/braklight/turn signal function.

What do you think about point 1 and 2?

Sebastian

Grzldvt

Sebastian,
I will get a chance on Saturday to look at the infamous white wire situation. I know what he is talking about since I have the Euros on my C5.

My blinkers are also very fast, but that does not bother me too much.

As far as the light brown wire, I am guessing that runs to the switch the the Export cars have to run the fog lamps. I usd bullet connectors to connect the brown to the orange, so it would have a complete connection. I think you and I are 90% there.

I took pictures of my jumpers but didn't have a chance to post them. I am glad you got that figured out.
Remember the main connectore is exposed to the elements so make sure you seal it really well.

schwarzbart1

I give you my email adress please send me the pictures.

The light brown is not the fog, the orange wire is fog in the Euro and those is not included in the US body harness. Why didn't you connect the light brown from the body with the light brown Euro cable?

I am not in because one lamp is still on backorder and I have to figure out why the turn signal is too fast and why it's coming on if I break.

Sebastian

Grzldvt

You are right it is the orange for the fogs. I did not connect the orange to anything on the American harness. I did connect the brown. Must be the excitement of getting it working
Hopefully in the next day or two, I can get the amber brake light situation solved.
I will get the pictures to you in the next day or two