jamesfg
Well-Known Member
Oh yeah look underneath plenty of spots
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Bed Lighting Kit
- Thread starter Jordan2929
- Start date
ok so i purchased the ram cargo lights off ebay. can i just wire them into the hot wire without going thru all the steps to wire them under the dash ? then going to the dealer to hook it up to their scanner so it works . new to the ram world but love my new truck so far thanks !
Jordan2929
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately no, its not going to work if you do that. Someone has already tried to get around having to do it the way the instructions say and it didn't work.
RodRow
Active Member
This is an awesome post that I’ll need to save in case I want to do this “right” in the future. In the meantime:
I have a tonneau cover and I find that I need to turn the bed lights on very often while at the rear of my truck, so I went the easy route...
I purchased the lights from Amazon at the link below and wired them to my trailer harness by the spare tire. It has a weather resistant push button that I adhered to the bottom of my tonneau rail. I love it and it only cost me $25. I must remember to turn them off, but that’s no biggie.
I have a tonneau cover and I find that I need to turn the bed lights on very often while at the rear of my truck, so I went the easy route...
I purchased the lights from Amazon at the link below and wired them to my trailer harness by the spare tire. It has a weather resistant push button that I adhered to the bottom of my tonneau rail. I love it and it only cost me $25. I must remember to turn them off, but that’s no biggie.
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well crap ok will do it the right way .doesnt sound too bad just thought i would take a shortcut
I'd like to do it this way. I went with the Mictuning strip lighting on Amazon. On the trailer harness I'm guessing there is constant power (hot wire) to the 12 o'clock pin on the 7-pin? Want to make sure I have that correct. This seems to be the easiest install and I don't care about the turning on and off. Thanks!
Jordan2929
Well-Known Member
The 1 O’clock postion in the 7 pin plug is battery charge for the trailer, and yes it powers up with the ignition. If you’re just going to plug it in to the 7 pin plug I’d use the 11 O’clock position which comes on with your marker lights, the reason I’d use that one is because your marker lights only come on when it’s dark so your bed lights won’t be on all the time.
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RodRow
Active Member
Correct. The pins are labeled on the cover of the trailer connector. I used the constant power and negative (I believe that they were red and white respectively). SUPER simple.
Jordan2929
Well-Known Member
No, unfortunately that wire is only on the interior of the truck. It runs down the interior sill plates and up the c pillar to the third brake light.
RedRocketZ28
Well-Known Member
Nice install. I plan on doing the same thing since it's so cheap. I haven't taken a look at my truck yet, but where did you run the wires through to get them under the bed? Do you have any pictures of where you tapped into for the power? Anything else I should purchase as well? I have plenty of wire laying around but figured I might need some double sided tape for the switch. Also, I just had a drop-in liner installed and hope it won't interfere with me running the wires.
Thanks for the help.
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RodRow
Active Member
Here are a few pics of my routing and wiring. I used the blue clips shown so that I wouldn’t need to cut the existing wires to splice. I routed down through the top holes in the rear corner stake pockets. The on/off switch will not fit through the hole, but, if you remove the fuse, the fuse holder and wires will snake down near the taillight nicely.
I tapped into the 1pm (+) and 7pm (-) position wires on my trailer plug for constant power. This is user’s choice as I understand that one wire is on only with the tail lights.
You will need a length of 18-14ga wire to extend from the trailer plug to the light harness, a small piece of double stick tape, roll of electrical tape, a couple of tie straps, 2 wire splitter clips (like the blue one below) and 2 wire couplers (end-to-end connector) and maybe some wire pliers.
I snaked a clothes hanger down through the stake pocket with the wires attached and went beneath to pull them down. Pretty easy really. 30 minutes maybe?
RedRocketZ28
Well-Known Member
Thank you, RodRow! Extremely helpful.
RodRow
Active Member
No problem man. Let me know if you need anything else.
Jzelbst
Active Member
I had zero luck running my lights and connecting to that same wire. I’m trying to figure out what I did wrong here
Jordan2929
Well-Known Member
Where did you ground it? and have you changed your cargo lights to led?
Jzelbst
Active Member
Cargo lights are not LED. I tried multiple spots along the underside of the bed to ground it with zero luck. I hooked the lights up to a battery and they are working fine
Jordan2929
Well-Known Member
If you have a test light I would test that wire to make sure it’s the right one, other than that the only difference is I changed out my cargo bulbs to led.
Jzelbst
Active Member
I tested them on a battery and everything worked. I just changed the cargo lights out to LEDs and I will reconnect everything else tomorrow morning and see if they work. Now it’s time to drink a beer and question my life choices!
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