Rear Fog regulations, and function.

[Starinless]

Hello again!
I have a 2008 nissan patrol that doesn't come with front or rear fog lights, but I have added them through the manufactures original wiring harness.
It all works well but the rear fog positions are used as brake and taillights on my version.
Here is an old album http://imgur.com/a/nIRnW (I was deciding between red upper indicators or amber, I chose amber)

now the lower bumper lights are brake tail and stop with the amber as turn, and the uppers are the same on the left but on the right side the red lense turns on when the rear fog light is switched on as well as the brake.

The problem is is it legal for the left upper lamp to function as a stop lamp while the right one is constantly lit as a rear fog.(keep in mind no wiring was changed I just pluged in a headlight stalk with a front and rear fog position.)
If not, how would you guys recommend I mod it, I could disconnect both upper lamps stop wires permanently, maybe I could use a relay to cut the stop lamp power to the left when the rear fog is on, or even just wire both lamps as rear fogs and not worry about it.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

now the lower bumper lights are brake tail and stop with the amber as turn, and the uppers are the same on the left but on the right side the red lense turns on when the rear fog light is switched on as well as the brake.

I'd go back to having the upper cluster being the turn/stop/tail lamps, with yellow turn signals instead of red (which is required under ADR), and then set up the bumper-mounted right lamp as the rear fog lamp. Under UNECE regulations, the rear fog lamp must be 10cm (about 3.93") away from the nearest lighted edge of a stop lamp.

I'd also take the bulbs out of the lower turn signals and paint the lenses with Dupli-Color MetalCast red to make those compartments 'dummies'.

 

[-Virgil-]

Looking at your album, there's some stuff wrong. I don't think you drew the right conclusion when you thought you found the parts that could allow you to set up the vehicle with red rear turn signals. Australia (sensibly) requires them to be amber. I think what you found with those red/red upper clusters was a set of European-spec upper lamps. Take a look at them on this German example of your same car. Europe requires amber rear turn signals and a rear fog lamp; in Australia a rear fog lamp is not required (or wasn't in 2008, anyway). The European setup probably uses one of the upper rear lamps on each side as brake/tail, the other as rear fog, and the only turn signal on each side would be the small amber one in the bumper. Or, the lower reds might be the rear fogs and both upper reds might provide brake/tail, or one might be brake/tail and the other tail, or one brake and one tail.

The upper clusters you chose, with the amber upper compartment, are probably Australia-spec units.

Before you start deciding which lamps are going to do what function, the first and most important step is to figure out what they were designed to do. We don't get to just decide "Oh, it used to be a brake light but now it's a rear fog lamp because I changed how it's hooked up". That's not how this works -- that's not how any of this work. Each lamp (each compartment in a multi-function lamp) is designed and intended to produce one or more specific functions. The brake light and the rear fog light are both red, but their performance requirements are different because they are different functions. Time to look closely at the lamps and show/tell us what markings are found on them.

You may wind up adding on a self-contained rear fog as described here (link goes to second page of discussion).

Also you mention the lower amber lamps are turn/reverse. That's unusual; Australia used to permit amber reversing lamps (prior to the 1980s they were often combined with the rear turn signals, whcih also had to be amber) but while I don't recall what year this was changed to require reversing lamps to be white, I am pretty sure it was well before your 2008 Patrol was made. Anyway, the upper lamp clusters appear to contain a white reversing lamp, so there's no good reason to have the lower amber lamps also serving that function.

s it legal for the left upper lamp to function as a stop lamp while the right one is constantly lit as a rear fog.

No.

 

[Starinless]

The car sold here in Western Australia comes with the red upper assembly by default. The assembly is fake and has no lamps at all because of visibility requirements involving the spare tyre. All 3 socket are sealed on both sides so only the 4 lower lamps are used for tail brake and reverse, I think a lamp only has to conform to adr's when it was first approved, Nissan has been using the exact same lamp housing in the bumper on all patrols for the past 30 years or so.

Now back to markings the lower lamps have an e- ode circle on the lens with the letters adr inside and 49/00 47/00 6/00 and 1/00 49 is tail and brake 47 is retro reflectors 6 is indicators and 1 is reverse.
The amber upper lamps have SAE I6P S2T2 on them and an e-code e45 circle with AR 2A R F I think 2A is a turn lamp R is a taillight and F is fog.
So it looks like they are a USA tail and brake but a ECE tail and fog, so what's the prognosis should I disconnect the brake wires to both upper lamps and have it light for fog and tail only or disconnect the brake wire only when the fog switch is onso both function as brake then the fog switch is off, because as you said having one act as a brake whilst the other is a fog is illegal.

 

[-Virgil-]

Interesting setup!

SAE:
I6: Turn signal
P: Front position lamp. Don't think so. Probably an R for Reversing lamp.
S2: Stop lamp for vehicles over 80" wide (can also be used on narrower)
T2: Tail lamp for vehicles over 80" wide (can also be used on narrower)

ECE:
AR: Reversing lamp
2A: Rear turn signal
R: Tail lamp
F: Rear fog lamp

This all stands to reason; the US stop lamp intensity requirement and the ECE rear fog lamp intensity requirement are both higher than the ECE/ADR stop lamp requirement.

What to do depends on how much effort you want to put into it. The upper lamps' white sections are the optimal reversing lamps, rather than using the amber lowers. The upper and lower red lamps can provide the tail function, no problem. Tail and rear fog lamps can be combined in the upper lamps, no problem. But then you're banishing the stop (brake) light function to the small, low lamps in the bumper. That's not so good. There are ways of wiring it up so the upper red lamps (optionally along with the lower red lamps) provide the stop lamp function until you turn on the rear fog switch, which would operate the right upper red lamp at high intensity for the fog function, cancel the left upper red lamp's bright red operation (neither upper red light would respond to the brake pedal) and leave the lower red lights operating as the brake lights. When you turn off the rear fog switch, the brake light function would return to the upper lamps. That's more effort, but probably worth it to have the safety benefit of the larger, brighter, higher-mounted stop lamps...and you'd probably be using them that way much more often than you'd be using the rear fog.

It's still a little weird that this vehicle came with amber reversing lamps; ADR 1 as of 2005 requires white, and while it's legal to make replacement equipment identical to original equipment for vehicles that were originally certified to older versions of the ADRs (the 1980 version of ADR 1 allowed amber or white), no it is not the case that a lamp approved to an obsolete version of an ADR is legal for installation on new vehicles certified after the effective date of a newer version of the ADR. About the only possible way I can imagine this could theoretically happen legally is that Section 7 of ADR 1 (2005) says that compliance with any version of ECE Regulation 23 is acceptable. I don't have historical versions of R23 to look and see if there might be an old version that permitted amber. I don't think there is, though, and even if it was, it wouldn't apply in this case because those lower lamps are not ECE-approved, they're ADR-certified.

 

[Starinless]

Thanks for your help.
I will use a relay to keep Thu upper brake lights working when the fogs are off and disable the left stop signed when it is on.

 

[Starinless]

More questions to come!