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Swapping early 240 taillights for later model taillights.

1988 240 had taillights that were in very bad condition. A set on our old 1982 244 turbo were in excellent condition. It would seem that the older taillights are a higher quality as I see lots of early 80’s 240’s with great looking taillights.

Thanks to Bob (user B.C.) for starting me down the right path and encouraging me to document the procedure.

I took both sets to the workbench and carefully removed the circuit boards. Be gentle! A heatgun provided enough heat to soften the tape that holds the connection portion to the plastic housing. The circuit boards from the 1988 were installed in the lens portion of the 1982 lights. The gaskets were put in place and the taillights were reinstalled.



No modification was needed on the driver’s side. Simply install the bulb and holders from the 1988 taillights and reattach the wiring harness.

On the passenger’s side the combo taillight/stoplight bulb assembly needs some reworking. It is the lower outside panel in the taillight (circled).



On this image you will see that there are three small black plastic protrusions. The one that is circled must be removed. It would be best to do that prior to assembling the unit otherwise cut it in some way that will not damage the circuit board. Be aware that the piece you cut off leaves a hole in the circuit board and that copper conductor you can see around the hole in the image is in fact part of the ground circuit. That makes the next step important!



Cut two small pieces of electrical tape and cover the hole in the board where the plastic has been cut. Failure to do this will most like result in blown fuses once the “jumper” is installed later.



While working on this trial and error I must have broken off one of the three tabs that index the bulb holder to the taillight assembly. It was one of the small ones. The other one visible on the right in this image is the large one. When I tried to replace this broken bulbholder at the completion of the swap I found that an unbroken holder would not go into place…. So break your bulbholder accordingly.



I had some brass shim stock that I had picked up at my auto supply store. It was about .005 thick. I cut a small piece of shim stock to serve as a jumper for the bulbholder to obtain power for the taillight which moved beyond the contact area of the 1988 circuit board.



With the bulbholder rotated into position the jumper can be slipped into place. It receives power from the adjacent copper conductor but is insulated from the ground by the tape.