Hi there, for anyone wanting to put the 5th gen 2500 tails on your 4th gen 1500, I just successfully did it on the cheap, cost around $450CAD and some labour making a couple of adapters.
I have a 2019 ram 1500 classic night edition (express w/ blackout package) factory halogen tail configuration so has the 3 pin and 2 pin molex connectors.
you can buy oem 2500 tails if you want I opted for the clone ones, found them for around $400 for the pair on amazon, look great and function identically to the oem ones.
you can buy the molex male connectors to connect to your factory wiring, you can get them with the wire already pinned or get them with the pins separate and pin the connectors yourself, I opted to pin my self and soldered the wires to the pins instead of crimping them, although crimping them are fine. You can get the molex connectors off aliexpress or mouser or digikey, I got them from aliexpress. Cost about $10CAD shipped for all the connectors to attach to my factory wiring and plug into the new 2500 5th gen tails.
I built the 2 harness with 18awg primary automotive wire, bought a spool of about 25’ cost $10CAD from canadian tire (harbor freight for my usa friends) wraped the finished harness with pvc braided wire loom and shrink tubed the ends.
I chose for now to have the new 5th gen tails operate what they call the “red” turn signal mode, which function identical to the factory halogens 4th gen tails, red marker when brake is on, side blinks red that if using turn signal while other side stays lit showing brake on. You can do the amber turn signals if you want and I will later on, youll have to run 2 wires all the way to the bcm (under your dash steering wheel side) and pin them to 2 factory harnesses. A bit of work but doable. I pinned the wires for turn amber turn signal snd fault sense in the 16 pin molex connector and capped the ends with shrink tubing and left them inside the wire loom for future use.
You can also run the 2 fault sense wires to a connector on the carriage of the truck close to the driver door and get the bulb out messages if your tails go out, I will eventually but not needed to get working.
I didnt set anything in alphaobd and the new tails worked with no issues or error or bulb out messages, but I then after decided to change all the led tail light setting in alphaobd just incase.
The hardest part of this whole project was finding the wiring pinouts to convert from 4th gen halogen to 5th gen led, and what connectors to buy to make the conversion harness, you can buy the harness premade off ebay for around $300CAD, a little pricey for me and honestly I feel like ppl are getting ripped off for about $10 worth of parts and 20 mins of labour, $100 ok but I cant justify $300 to be fair. That is the main reason Im writing this post, hopefully this helps someone figure out how to do the conversion themselves.
RED TURN SIGNAL PINOUT
LED 5th Gen Halogen 4th
16 pin connector. 3 pin connector
-pin 1 park. -pin 2 park
-pin 2 brake/turn. -pin 1 brake/tn
-pin 3 turn(optional). -
-pin 4 reverse. -
-pin 5 ground. -pin 3 ground
-pin 7 fault(optional). -
LED 5th gen Halogen 4th
16 pin connector. 2 pin connector
-pin 1 park. -
-pin 2 brake/turn. -
-pin 3 turn(optional). -
-pin 4 reverse. -pin 1 reverse
-pin 5 ground. -
-pin 7 fault(optional). -
HALOGEN FACTORY WIRING
3 pin con - 7287-0958-30 male
2 pin con - 7287-1596-30 male
5TH GEN 2500 TAIL LIGHTS
12 pin con - 33472-1201 female
