I recently met someone with a roadster who had cleverly wired up the boot mounted brakelight as a Fog lamp. I had the opportunity to have a look at a road traffic manual (Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations '89) and it has nothing which would make this illegal

Max. height for lamp 1000mm
Min. height 250mm
Preferred on Centre line or offside

If not in the same body as the lights the lamp must be 100mm away No requirement for size or wattage The lamp must be switchable independently of the brakes At the end of the day the fog lamp is for your own safety so I suppose it is in your best interest to make it as safe as possible. (2/00)

I've done this - with a twist.

My high level brake light works as a fog light when it's switched on (and then I have two normal brake lights). But when it's off, it works as a third brake light. And no - the two normal brake lights don't come on when you switch the fog light on.

Is it legal?

Dunno - my MoT tester says not, so I have a plug........... But the law is that the fog light must be at least 100mm away from a brake light. But when it's on, it's nowhere near a brake light. (2/00)

Easy: use 2 diodes as follows: (ugly ascii-art follows)

use a diode that will survive the amps that go through it... i.e. MR 751 (6 amps).

Or, to make mounting easier: use a bridge rectifier, connect each of the switches to one of the AC (~) terminals, and use the (+) connection to connect the fog/brake light. ( a simple thing like a B80C5000 wil do) ask the local radio shack...

All this is assuming the switches are connected to ground, and the lamp to +12V.

If the circuit works the other way around (unlikely) use the (-) erminal on the bridge rectifier... (2/00)

I saw the reply above, and he's right - but not sure if you'll understand it, so here's my attempt at ASCIIArt.:

As he says, use beefy diodes --6A are fine. (2/00)

Recently I got rear fog lights fitted below the bumper. As you can imagine, they are a complete eyesore, but I did feel they were the safest option (garage convinced me people may misinterpret a rear foglight positioned where the rear 3rd brakelight is...not convinced, but they did make me concerned!!!)

I got two fitted (I thought it would be more pleasing to the eye as it would look more balanced) and was wondering how easy is it to get a bodyshop to cut them both into the rear bumper. I've seen pics of one being cut into the position of a rear fog on a UK car. Is it just as easy to fit two? Does anyone have any idea of labour time/expense that would be involved? Is there any risks/advice/tips I could tell the bodyshop about if I got it done? (4/00)

I cut into the bumper of my Roadster to fit the fog light, this weekend just gone. The light was one of those 5 quid jobs from Halfords. It took me and a couple of mates about 3 hours, but that's 'cus we took it slowly to make sure we did it properly - it paid off, 'cus the fog lit fitted perfectly.

Basically, thanks to the pics provided, I removed the rear bumper and worked out where to mount the fog light. Fortunately there's some convenient holes set just off center to the left and right. I chose to mount it on the right-hand side (as on the UK spec 5), Then, while I was under the car, I got my mates to put the bumper back on so I could see where I needed to cut. In terms of working out how much to take off, I took off bits at a time - going on the philosophy that you can't put it back on once you've taken it off! And that's it...job done! (4/00)