Cargo Light wiring

[Nick4320]

Hey all, new to the forums here.

I go to the beach to surf fish during the warmer months and got to thinking having some flood lights under the rear bumper would be nice. Not trying to light up the entire beach but just some light to help clean up at 12 at night after fishing is over and the fire is out, hence the flood lights.

The other day i had the idea of "what if i could tie in some flood lights to the Cargo lights on the 3rd break light, This way they would already have a button and relay"

So what would the best way to go about this.
Run a wire stealing power from the already existing cargo lights?
Find the correct relay, and correct wire out of the relay, and run new wiring to the rear?
or possible another option i havent thought of yet.

 

[TRXHemi]

You would need them to have their own relay and power, but the start wire needs to come from the hot wire on the bed light. I believe you can find that one on the drivers side rear seat (CC) harness. I think that wire is white with a tan stripe if I remember correctly....

Someone can correct me. But anyway, install the lights and run your wires to a relay. Then the 'start' wire for the relay would come from the hot wire for the cargo lights. Then when you unlock your ride or turn that light on, the floods should come on also.

Thoughts?

 

[Longhorn1500]

I was thinking the same thing, I would not power the "flood lights" from the cargo light line. Running that to flip a relay would be best. Make sure you fuse your new "flood light" circuit.

 

[sbarron]

I wired mine to have a relay to be triggered by the cargo light. The added benefit is that when I unlock the truck the lights come on a approach lights.

 

[Nick4320]

You would need them to have their own relay and power, but the start wire needs to come from the hot wire on the bed light. I believe you can find that one on the drivers side rear seat (CC) harness. I think that wire is white with a tan stripe if I remember correctly....

Someone can correct me. But anyway, install the lights and run your wires to a relay. Then the 'start' wire for the relay would come from the hot wire for the cargo lights. Then when you unlock your ride or turn that light on, the floods should come on also.

Thoughts?

That makes alot of sense, This way your not stealing any real power for the bed lights, just enough to flip the relay.

the CC Harness that you mention i would have to run a wire from that to the relay (which i would mount under the hood) and that harness is tucked behind the rear driver side seat? or is there an easy way to get to it from under the hood

 

[sbarron]

That makes alot of sense, This way your not stealing any real power for the bed lights, just enough to flip the relay.

the CC Harness that you mention i would have to run a wire from that to the relay (which i would mount under the hood) and that harness is tucked behind the rear driver side seat? or is there an easy way to get to it from under the hood

I ran a power line into the cab to behind the rear seat. Relay is mounted there. Wire from cargo light to relay never exits cab. then its a simple matter of routing the wires to the lights.

I'll see if I can find some pictures.

 

[corneileous]

You would need them to have their own relay and power, but the start wire needs to come from the hot wire on the bed light. I believe you can find that one on the drivers side rear seat (CC) harness. I think that wire is white with a tan stripe if I remember correctly....

Someone can correct me. But anyway, install the lights and run your wires to a relay. Then the 'start' wire for the relay would come from the hot wire for the cargo lights. Then when you unlock your ride or turn that light on, the floods should come on also.

Thoughts?

[emoji106][emoji106][emoji106][emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]

That’s what I would do. Especially with these newer late model vehicles, it’s hardly ever a good idea to tap other things into existing circuits. You’re just asking for trouble. Some people are able to do it depending on what accessory they’re hooking up but on my ride, anything I add is going to be on its own circuit. Peace of mind is worth it to me more.

Just like on my old pickup, my 08 Ram - I put new Anzo headlights on it one day that just so happened to have LED and CCFL halo DRL’s in them and, I probably woulda been alright to just tap into the park lamp circuit like the directions said to but instead, I played it safe and bought a relay, some connectors, little bit of extra wire, and was gonna use the park lamp wire as the turn on circuit but since I wanted my new white lights to be like true DRL’s, I couldn’t use that wire. I had to tap into a 12 volt switched circuit in the fuse box.

But either way, I still used a relay to run power to these, regardless how much juice they actually used.


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[Tim7139]

I'd plug into one of the trailer plugs and pull power from the tail light wire. You could pull from the 12v power of the 7 pin trailer connector if you didn't have a need for it (I'd rather live without tail lights than trailer brakes if I borked something).