Adding rock lights to the rock sliders using the leftover wire connectors (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter HomersCanyonero
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
Nevermind. I should have read past page 1.
Digging up this thread….
Love using the stock harness because the lights come on with the key fob and doors. However, I’d love the option to manually trigger the lights via the switch panel in my cab while retaining the existing functionality.
Is this going to be a huge amount of trouble to wire up? Just don’t want to wire a second set of rock lights under the truck.
I know the stock harness switches the ground and power is always on. Hoping it’s a simple matter of identifying the right spot on the stock harness to tap a relay or something and wire it to the switch panel.
Does this even seem reasonable?
Love using the stock harness because the lights come on with the key fob and doors. However, I’d love the option to manually trigger the lights via the switch panel in my cab while retaining the existing functionality.
Is this going to be a huge amount of trouble to wire up? Just don’t want to wire a second set of rock lights under the truck.
I know the stock harness switches the ground and power is always on. Hoping it’s a simple matter of identifying the right spot on the stock harness to tap a relay or something and wire it to the switch panel.
Does this even seem reasonable?
I don't have a wiring diagram but I know that these are ground triggered so the power is always hot. You could use the C terminal of a relay to the ground of the lights, NC to the factory ground, and NO to any ground. Then when the relay is powered the lights will turn on and when off they work as normal. I would get a wiring diagram to see where the ground for these comes from so you only need to tap a single wire inside of the car. Easy job
Dope! That sounds not too bad at all, even for an electrical novice like me.
Is the idea that I’d want to find the right spot on the harness (via the diagram) so that the relay + switch are connected in a way that the other switches (like from the door jamb) don’t interfere / override?
The idea would be to intercept the ground wires from the curtsey lights between the connector outside the car and the ECU controlling them in the car. Then you can control the lights as you want and not interfere with the factory system's function when the relay is off since its still wired just as it was.
Awesome, thank you! I’ll review the wiring diagrams and take a pass this weekend. Will share results on here.
If I can figure out how to read the wiring diagrams, I will do that, lol.
I’m at a bit of a loss making sense of them.
Will keep at it, though, and document what I find.
Red wire to the left and right side steps is hot. That goes to junction box 3 (diag 2) which gets its power from the body ecu (diag 1). The Red/Blue wires from the steps are ground and go to the sub body ECU (diag 2). Not sure where those ECUs are at and thats where the diagrams that I have run out/ From what I see and understand you want to cut the red/blue wires to the sub body ECU and that would mean 2 relays to keep factory function.
Amazing - thank you!!
From this page, it looks like the sub body ECU is near the gas tank
So I’d want to put the relays close to the sub body ECU. My limited understanding of relays is in regards to using them as a switch to avoid running high amperage wires all over the place. So have a light bar somewhere, and you can run the relay to its power under the hood with the relay connected to a switch in the car. Flip switch, relay completes the high current circuit.
For this, the power is always hot, but the ground is “interrupted” (not sure if that’s the right word) so that the circuit isn’t complete 24/7.
Is the idea that id wire from the negative terminal of the switch to the relay, and when the switch is on, that “completes” the ground so that the lights come on?
Having trouble wrapping my head around this one.
Yes. The idea is that the common terminal of the relay connects to the plug at the steps and the normally closed side of the relay connects to the factory controller so that when the switch is off, the wiring is connected as if the relay wasn't there but when you want them to be on you flip the switch and the steps get grounded through the relay. It looks like you will need to have 2 relays as each step has its own home run to the sub ecu so you'll need to intercept each side like this independently. You can power both relays off one switch to get this result though.
Thank you! That makes a lot more sense. I’m ordering some 2-pin connectors and other miscellaneous wiring stuff from Amazon today. Will add some relays to that order, and, hopefully, get to it this weekend or next.
Really appreciate your help, @captainva !
- Thread starter
- #75
And take lots of pictures for the rest of us to copy the setup!
I will set a reminder for this project! Usually I get caught up working and forget.
If the lights just need ground supplied through the ecu/harness then it seems this could be accomplished with a simple single pole double throw switch. Using with a on-on or on-off-on version. Basically the ground wire from harness to light plug gets cut. Connect the harness side of that ground wire to the top lug of the switch. Connect the light side of that ground wire to the center lug. Then attach a new ground wire from chassis to the bottom lug of the switch. In position one you have factory action. With switch in position two you have lights on demand. With the on-off-on type of switch the center position would give you an additional option of an open circuit with lights off all the time.
Last edited:
