I misspoke at one point when I said something about hooking the brown to the signals, what I really meant was to the running lights. So the brown positive feed from the van is hooked to the lights with the power running through a resistor. With this brand led, the brown running light wire runs to the black wire on each light, which is the LED running light. The two issues solved include dimming the running lights, so you can see the brake or signal light, as well as the reverb I was getting in the opposing signal light.
