2019-2020 Laramie LED reflector to Limited LED projector Upgrade

[AlexanderK]

Hello everyone. I'm new to forums in general and just wanted to share my experiences on what went into the upgrade-conversion from the OE LED reflector headlights on the laramie to the OE LED projector headlights and their intended funtionality with auto turning. It all started with ordering the truck. I went back and forth for about a week on whether or not to get the limited vs the laramie. dually vs the SRW. I ended up going with the SRW primarily beause I would'nt be towing anything over 12000 pounds. I settled for the Laramie night edition with every single option available. I didnt like the wood grain on the limited which kind of looked tacky and there werent too many interior differences to justify all the extra work I would have to do to remove all the chrome etc. Plus, the night edition tail lights come black as well as the mirrors, grille and interior accents. After speking with the dealer, there was nothing that could be done as far as getting the lights that come on the limited / longhorn editions other than buying those lights. So the day I ordered the truck, I bought a set of new lights from a 2019 ram 3500 limited on ebay for around 410 bucks a piece combo deal. they were mint condition aside from some dirt on the back of them suggesting they were taken off of a wrecked brand new truck. I figured they should be plug and play aside from figuring out how to enable the turning feature. The lights came in and now I would have these things for around a month and a half before the tuck was delivered. I sent them out to get painted and took some pictures before sending them out. Just for **** and pickles, I went to the dealer to take a look at the LED reflector headlight hrnes and noticed that the standard headlight used a 12 pin connector and that my headlights I ordered used a 16 pin connector. I went on to tech authority and pulled up wiring diagrams hoping it would be just the front harness but it was way more than that. The passenger side headlight connects to the front harness and the driver side headlight comes off of the left side body harness. rather than ordering the connectors i went ahead and ordered the harnesses thinking how hard can it be. The front harness was ordered from the dealer for 90 bucks (list 140) and i ordered the left side engine/body harness online for $400 (dealer wanted $985 and couldnt give me a part number for the 2020 yet as it was too new and they didnt have any info for it). Fast forward a month and a half and the truck is in. I start with removing the grille, headlights, driver side battery, fender liners, battery tray and begin removing everything. front harness was pretty straightforward but the body harness was a royal pain in the ***. getting to the body computer connectors with my giant hands resulted in alot of cuts and cussing. after that was all done one of the large connectors had a different style plug on it which required cutting off an alignment tab to get it to connect and seat properly. when the front harness was installed there was an extra connector just below the headlight connection with a yellow/yellow brown wire. wiring diagrams showed this was the Can C communication for the headlights to the body computer/radio. This meant that the Right side body/engine harness needed to be replaced as well and I wasnt having any of that ****. the connector is the same as the rear most EGT sensor which I happened to have an exta of (hehe) and i eneded up running an wxra 2 wire into the can distribution block under instrument cluster on the drivers side. Headlights were intalled and vehicle configuration was modified to enable the headlight option. Some other changes that were made were CBC i/o dedicated drl lamp output needed to be disabled for both, adaptive front light system enabled, changing desired voltage outputs for corner and turn signal outputs, enabling LED front turn lamps, and vehicle special packages. after that was done new settings come up on uconnect to enable smart steering headlights and auto highbeam. In case anyone is interested i can make a full writeup on all the steps taken and how to do them as well as which parts they woud need. After going through everything and never wanting to change that damn harnes ever again, a buddy of mine wanted to do the same thing so i will be making an adapter harness thay will plug into the 12 pin connector on each side allowing it to adapt to the 16 pin and an exra harness with connector to plug into the can distribution block. Attached are some pictures of the process / the result.

 

[PorBoy]

Wow is all that I can say besides you are a very patient person.

 

[Waterfowler41]

Great post, you wouldn’t happen to have access to those wiring diagrams would you? I’m trying to find the pinout for my 2020 Rebel with the LED (non turning) heads. Trying to tap my brights and running lights for light bars.

Thanks!

 

[AlexanderK]

Great post, you wouldn’t happen to have access to those wiring diagrams would you? I’m trying to find the pinout for my 2020 Rebel with the LED (non turning) heads. Trying to tap my brights and running lights for light bars.

Thanks!

Here is a diagram. I would not recommend taqpping directly to those lights as they have current sense and are pwm controlled by the BCM. You can buy a few mosfets on digikey or mouser really cheap that can handle the currenty you're trying to draw. Just hook the source up to battery, gate to your trigger wire and drain to the light bar then ground the light bar to chassis. Put a small cap on the gate for smoothing of the pwm and you're good to go. let me know if you need help with the circuit.

 

[Waterfowler41]

Here is a diagram. I would not recommend taqpping directly to those lights as they have current sense and are pwm controlled by the BCM. You can buy a few mosfets on digikey or mouser really cheap that can handle the currenty you're trying to draw. Just hook the source up to battery, gate to your trigger wire and drain to the light bar then ground the light bar to chassis. Put a small cap on the gate for smoothing of the pwm and you're good to go. let me know if you need help with the circuit.

I’m not planning to run the light bars using the brights circuit i was only using the brights as my trigger for the relay. I will have a separate power and ground for the lights just needed something to tell the relay to turn on.

Interested in your recommendation above but I’m a mech engineer who burned up a lot of resistors in my ele 101 class so if you could draw that out it may make a little more sense time.

 

[Waterfowler41]

I’m not planning to run the light bars using the brights circuit i was only using the brights as my trigger for the relay. I will have a separate power and ground for the lights just needed something to tell the relay to turn on.

Interested in your recommendation above but I’m a mech engineer who burned up a lot of resistors in my ele 101 class so if you could draw that out it may make a little more sense time.

This is my relay box in progress. Running 3 circuits with 3 dedicated powers, fuses, and relays. Two triggers will be used. Drl will tell my drl relay to turn on and the brights will tell my light bar relay to turn on. The third is a future for a pillars lights sometime down the road. I’ll just remove that circuits relay and fuse for the time being.

 

[HDJ]

Any possibility that you can share the pinout of the 12 pin and 16 pin connector for the 2500/3500 as I am going through exactly the same process but am not able to find the subscription to the Tech Authority manuals with the diagrams. Also, if you can share the location of the Can bus connection that would be awesome. Fantastic price on the headlights at $410. It has certainly not stayed down there these last couple of years.

 

[6of36]

Any possibility that you can share the pinout of the 12 pin and 16 pin connector for the 2500/3500 as I am going through exactly the same process but am not able to find the subscription to the Tech Authority manuals with the diagrams. Also, if you can share the location of the Can bus connection that would be awesome. Fantastic price on the headlights at $410. It has certainly not stayed down there these last couple of years.

This is a 1500 site. Totally different wiring. Try HDRams.