After following a few HC's last year on the various show runs I decided that the brake light design is rather 'dated' in that they are not as noticeable as brake lights on a modern car. They are supposed to be warning lights and in my opinion the standard ones are a bit lacking in that department now a days.
First of all they are relatively small by modern standards and secondly they are quite low down compared with the higher seating position in modern cars.
I had thought of upgrading them to modern LED's but I'm not a fan of that idea on looks alone. So I decided to fit a 3rd brake light, just like modern cars.
After a bit of research and consideration on mounting, looks etc. I bought a cheap LED lamp bar from eBay for £3 including postage to mount on the rear parcel shelf. The one I chose was about 200 mm long.
I removed the white writing using nail polish remover and covered the wires with black shrink wrap.
If you look inside the boot at the underside of the parcel shelf you will see a conveniently placed hole through which to fish the wires. Then up through the existing ventilation holes in the parcel shelf.
The wiring is simple, the red live wire goes to the brake light circuit, which is easily accessed at the brake light in the boot and the black wire is connected to the bodywork at any convenient place. I placed mine on the additional earthing terminal I have made at the tail lights to remedy persistent earthing problems with the lights.
All that remained was to give them a test.
When not lit the addition is not too noticeable.
All in all i think it is a worthwhile safety modification which cost the grand total of £3 plus about 20 minutes of my time.