How to Install Cheap Truck Bed Lights - No More Fumbling In The Dark!

[Music] hey everybody if you've got a pickup truck with a cover over the bed like this one then you know how frustrating it can be to try and see what is in the bed when it is dark outside so in this video i'm going to show you how i installed some bed lights that light up the interior of the bed of the truck so i can see what's in there when it's dark it looks a little something like this let's get started all right let's go over the parts i'm going to be using for this installation and i'll leave a link for all of these things down in the description the first of the lights that i'm going to be installing and these are the style that i prefer of course you can choose any lights that you'd like you're also going to need a switch to turn the monitor off i chose this switch because it's going to fit one of the existing holes from the factory that's already in the back of the truck so i don't have to drill anything you're also going to need a fuse holder that you can mount up by the battery to protect the circuit from short circuiting we're also going to need some primary wire i've got a spool of red and a spool of black one for the positive and one for the negative or ground a wire harness like this this will be used to protect the wiring as it runs from the front of the truck to the back i've also got these cable management clips and we'll use these to make sure that the wiring stays put in the back of the truck between the lights also you're going to need some heat shrink like that and also some electrical connectors like some ring connectors and spade connectors and in this video i'm also going to be trying out these new kind of heat shrinks that have the solder already built into them and that's going to be a kind of an interesting idea i've seen these used in other videos and people seem to like them quite a bit so i'm going to give these a try we're also going to need a heat gun a soldering iron and some solder as well as some of these little helper clips that can make it a little easier to do the soldering and also a pair of wire cutters and strippers and a crimping tool okay so these lights come in two strands and unfortunately the end of one strand does not have any easy way to connect to the next strand i thought that they did but since they don't i'm going to have to splice into the wire before the light here so i'm going to wind up cutting the wire somewhere in this section and splicing in the other strand so i'm going to go through this fairly quickly because it's pretty specific to this exact light set that i bought and if you buy something different then you may not even have to do this at all the basic idea here though is that i cut off the last little set of lights which would then give me a spot where i could splice in the beginning of the strand for the next set of lights and i did it in such a way that i could space out things so that each of the light pucks or light pods were roughly the same distance apart from each other all right that's not the neatest thing i've ever done but it should hold really well let's get it soldered up all right in this video in each of the solder connections you'll see that i'm going to use quite a lot of heat shrink um in each of them i'm going to put on this heat shrink that's got the solder in it as well as a little waterproofing glue at each end that's the little blue section you see there and when i first started using these i found that maybe they were just a little bit too thin walled for my comfort level and so after i put this first layer on i'd go over it with a second layer of the traditional black heat shrink you certainly don't need to do this i'm probably a little bit nuts for doing so but it gives me peace of mind that these are never going to fail okay with that soldering done the next thing i'm going to do is test to make sure that all the lights turn on now it would be best to do this with a 12 volt power supply rather than just straight off the car battery but i don't have a 12 volt power supply other than my car battery so be careful when you do this these batteries pack a punch you want to make sure that you are keeping straight negative and positive on these lights okay so they have wired them so that the stripe on the wire is positive and the one without the stripe is negative i'm going to touch the negative first and then we'll just touch the positive and see if they blink looks like they work all right with that test out of the way i know i wired them correctly we can go ahead and get started with the installation okay next we need to figure out how much wire we need to run from the front of the truck all the way to the back so we're just going to stretch out some wire here to see if we've got the right length you don't want to be too tight like this because we're going to have to run down and along the frame and under the engine and stuff so we're going to make sure we've got enough wire to get to this back corner because that's where my switch is going to need to be located it looks like we should have just enough all right next we need to add the fuse holder to our circuit but we're going to remove the fuse because we don't want the circuit to be completed until we are ready to test the thing we don't want this to be connected to the battery while we're pulling the wire down the frame of the truck for instance so remove the fuse and set that aside and then these fuse holders come in just a ring and then that's so that you can cut it here or maybe here or maybe over here depending on how you want to install it and i am just going to cut it more or less right in the center now one side will get a ring connector that we'll use to connect to the battery and the other side we are going to solder to the primary wire that's going to the back of the truck so i'm not going to get into a ton of detail about how to solder things and the right way to do all these connections but i am going to just kind of breeze over what i'm doing here so this is the connection that's going to go onto the battery and i'm using this little ring connector that is just going to slide over the end of a little bit of wire that i've stripped off once it's been slid over i'll crimp that down and then i'm going to solder that area that's been crimped for some extra security to make sure it's a really good strong connection and then i'm going to put a little bit of heat shrink around the very end of that ring connector and i'm doing that because this is going to be the positive side and you don't want that to touch anything else in the car that might be a ground so i'm going to add some extra insulation there then next i need to solder the other end of this which is on the other side of the fuse to the primary wire that's going to run all the way to the back of the truck and carry the positive side of the connection and for this it's just going to be a fairly standard connection that i'm going to solder up i'm going to use several different techniques here in this one i'm kind of pushing the strands of the wire together and then i'm going to sort of squish them down and twist them together a little bit and this is one style of making these connections i'm going to demonstrate several during the course of this video feel free to use whatever soldering technique you prefer but in every case i'm going to attach the wires together and then i'm going to solder the joint and then i'm going to add at least one layer and like i mentioned earlier in most cases several layers of heat shrink because things in cars can get jostled around a lot and you'll wind up having wires that can rub through and you especially don't want your positive lead to rub through and short out on anything else in the car all right with that primary wire all soldered up next it's time to get it into this little wiring harness so that i can run it to the back of the truck this is a little bit tricky but if you're lucky you can kind of slide your thumb through that little slit and guide the wire in but you may have to do it in little tiny sections at a time like this and of course i'm going to add a little bit more heat shrink at each of these joints to keep things held securely and firm so when i use the heat gun on this it actually shrunk down this tube as well and it probably doesn't make much difference but it bugs me so i'm going to go ahead and put another piece of heat shrink over the top of that and be a little more careful with the heat gun this time so here's a quick tip when you're working with zip ties we're going to be using zip ties under this truck to tie that loom to some of the existing looms that are already there as we route it and a lot of people will either just leave these big ends on or they'll cut them off at kind of an angle like this and the problem that this introduces is that this thing is really sharp at the end and it's sharp enough that if you're reaching up under there sometime when you've forgotten that these are there they'll scrape your arms and your hands and they'll cut your skin and they're they're really uncomfortable to have to deal with that way so rather than cutting that end off it's far better if you can twist it off instead you twist it off right at the very bottom there where it plugs in then you wind up with just a little nub on there that's not sharp and isn't going to get you when you're down there under the truck working in the future so our next step is to connect this to the positive terminal of the battery and this is going to vary a lot depending on what kind of truck you're installing this on you may have posts like i've got a variety to choose from you may have to come up with some other way but the the next step is to attach this to the positive side now i want to reiterate i don't have a fuse in this yet so i'm not actually connecting all of the wire to the positive side i'm only connecting this short section from here to the fuse connector once that's connected to the battery the next thing and again this is going to vary by truck is to snake this wire loom down through the body of the truck possibly along the frame or maybe even inside the frame all the way to the very back and get it to come out where you need to install your switch now i'm not going to give you tons of detail on this because it's very specific to the exact truck that you're installing on but i will give you some flavor of what it's like to try and run this so we need to connect that ring connector on the end of my positive lead to the positive side of the battery and i happen to have a bunch of different points where i could mount things i've got this post right here that has a nut on it straight from the factory and i'm just going to slide my ring connector over that put the nut back down and snug it down fairly firm but not too tight then i found when i tried to put the positive cover back on that it didn't quite want to close quite right and it's because this wire was coming out under a section where it was supposed to be fit together really flush so one of the things i had to do that's real specific to this vehicle is i had to trim that little cover for the positive side of the battery just to make a little hole that the positive lead could come out of without getting squished and pinched so with that cover all buttoned up next i needed to plan the route i was going to take with my wiring harness to get it from the front of the truck all the way to the back and i started this by just poking around under the battery area with a flashlight where i found an existing wiring harness from the factory and i decided to just parallel that all the way back as far as i could so this is where i'm figuring out the route and getting my wiring harness or loom started in the right direction so this is my new wiring loom right there this is behind the front left wheel of my truck and that is really close to the steering mechanism so i'm not going to want to route it right there instead what i'm going to do is i'm going to attach it to this loom up top here which comes down this edge of the frame and then i'm going to connect it to this loom here which runs down this way and at that point back there i should be able to get it into the frame and just follow inside the frame all the way to the back of the truck and that's essentially what i was able to do here this vehicle's frame is one that's got an awful lot of holes and access points in it both for other components and for water drainage things like that so i was able to feed a fish tape up from the rear of the vehicle through the center of the frame all the way up to the front where i could then tie it to my wiring loom and then feed the wiring loom back through the frame you may need to go parallel to your frame or just follow another loom to the back just get it back there however you can so this hole right here is the one i'm going to use for my switch and i need to pull that positive wire up to the switch location so i'm going to use my fish tape to fish down inside there down to the bottom part where i've just pulled that power wire all right now getting the power from the front of the truck to the back of the truck is probably going to be the most frustrating and kind of time consuming part of this entire project at least it was for me from here on out there's a lot of electrical connections to make but nothing terribly difficult as a brief overview i'm going to be putting my switch into the positive side of my circuit and then i'm going to connect the positive lead that now has a switch on it to the positive side of my lights and then i'm going to connect the negative side of the lights to a wire that's going to run straight to the body of the truck which is going to serve as the ground for this circuit up until now i've given you a fair bit of detail as far as each of the connections that i'm making and how i'm doing them but i'm going to kind of pick up the pace a little bit here because once you've seen me solder one connection you really don't need to see them all now i used spade connectors for my switch because that's what the switch used but yours might be different so you'll have to adapt the instructions and adapt what i'm doing here to fit exactly the parts and the vehicle that you're installing this in this is going to be the location of the switch but i want the wires for the lighting to come out of this little crack right back here so i need to fish the other half of the positive that's going to go to the switch from this hole back to this little crack right here which will then come out to the lights themselves all right this is where our switch is going to be okay with that the switch is wired up of course it doesn't do anything yet so i want the first light to be right above where that switch is so i need to make sure i've got enough length from this hot that's coming out or this positive that's coming out of that crack to somewhere close to that light so i'm going to give myself a little extra length there so i'll go ahead and cut this wire off i don't know and be right about there and we'll go ahead and we'll put our ground wire or negative wire through that same crack that's going to get to a ground inside of our tail light that i'll show you in a minute and by wiring in behind the tail light this way i'm not going to have any exposed wiring anywhere for the circuit other than between each of the light pods all right looking into the hole where the tail light normally would mount right through here you can see there's this little hole right there and that goes into the space on the back side of the bed where that ground wire is and i'm going to pull that ground wire through here and then i'm going to feed it up to a bolt up here that is grounded on the frame now anytime you're going to run wire through any portion of the body especially through any holes like this that have kind of sharp edges you definitely want to protect that wire so that it doesn't rub through all the vibration in the vehicle will eventually rub through those wires now i recognize this is a ground wire and it's going through the body which is also a ground so it really probably wouldn't hurt anything but still it's best practice to go ahead and put a little piece of wiring loom or harness in there to protect it from getting damaged and now with the wire protected through all of the little areas of the body it needs to be fished through i can add a ring connector to the end and then i can attach it to the final grounding location with a bulb that's going to go through that nut that's welded to the body and i'll add a little bit of dielectric grease to the bolt to protect it from any corrosion or rust that might happen [Music] with that grounding location finished up i now have a negative and positive side of my circuit with the switch installed so i can replace the tail light back onto the body of the car and then connect the positive side of my lights to the positive side of the circuit and the negative side of the lights to the ground [Music] and with the circuit now completed i'm going to wrap all of that in one last piece of wiring loom because it's going to be fed through a little section of the body at the back of the bed there and then we can move on to testing our lights all right we're ready for our first test but first we have to put the fuse into the fuse holder there we go then we can come to the back of the truck and try the switch they work and now that i've verified the lights work and the circuit is finished i can connect the lights up to the locations in the bed where i wanted them i'm just using some automotive grade double sticky tape here for the mounting and then i'm using those wire clips i mentioned at the beginning to tidy up the excess wire to hold it up out of the way so it doesn't dangle down from the top of the bed so i'm really happy with how this project turned out the lights stay up out of the way the wiring is completely hidden from view but boy when i need these lights i'm really glad that i've got them there i just uh opened the bed of the truck feel for that switch and flip them on and suddenly i can see everything that's in the bed of the truck [Music] it really does make a huge difference and this has been so handy as i've been out doing things especially at night i like to go out camping and do some astrophotography that sort of thing and when it's really dark out it's awfully hard to see what's back here and these lights have really been useful so hey if you've enjoyed this video or learned a little something you can let me know about that by hitting the thumbs up down below and you can drop me a comment if there's something i could improve on or something that i did that was just completely wrong i learned from you as much as you learned from me and if you want to see more content like this of course you can think about subscribing but there's no pressure there and as always thank you very much for watching i've also got some of these cable management clips and we'll use these for dropping all over the garage floor i chose this particular kind because i wanted this particular kind you can choose whatever kind of light you want but in this video i'm going to begin showing oh it's going to be fun today i'm already tripping over myself but i found you hang on don't do anything hold still oh shoot and let's make sure it's actually recording shall we

Channel: AmplifyDIY

Views: 108,384

Keywords: cheap truck bed light, truck bed light, truck bed lights wiring, truck bed lighting ideas, truck bed lights with switch, bed lights ranger, bed lights, ranger bed lights, ford ranger bed lights, truck bed lights, bed lights diy, how to install truck bed lights, led truck bed light, bed lights truck, truck bed lights install, how to install truck bed lights with switch, led truck bed lights, led truck bed lighting kit, Best led truck bed lights, led lights, truck lights

Id: yebfwewtZjg

Length: 18min 54sec (1134 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020