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I just purchased a mint 2012 King Ranch F250 6.7 with 44,000 miles on it. It's my first diesel and I'm not going to go into how awesome it is because we all know.....
It came with a fiberglass 1-piece bed cover which is fantastic. However, at night with the cover open, it blocks the cargo light and I can't see *****. It does not have bed lighting and I want to install LED strips and wire them into the cargo light. Anyone have any insight for how to get this done as cleanly as possible? If more than a PITA than worth it, do any of the up-fitter switch wires go to the back of the truck that I could use?
This is what I did. I installed a 3 way switch in a hole in the side of the bed right by the tailgate so I can turn them on from there or an upfitter. On-off-Upfitter.
I'll have to add pics later won't work from mobile.
So I haven't installed my lights yet, but what I did was remove the trailer harness and tap into it to get power. There are 12V+ and GND in the 7 pin connector, so I just spliced in some wires are ran them up to bed and put the switches right in the bed side. The catch on mine is that the trailer power is fused to the ignition, but what you can do is pull the relay and install a jumper to remove this function so you have constant 12V at the rear of the truck.
Here is the post in my thread. Keep going forward a few pages and you'll see where the control box gets mounted. Schematics will appear in there as well.
Mine are tied in to the running board light circuit so when the truck unlocks or doors are opened, the lights come on. In hindsight and in practice, this turned out to be a dumb idea. I should have wired them to a switch in the bed so when I'm back there I can turn them on regardless of what the truck is doing. As it is now, I have to keep hitting unlock on the fob or leave the door open so the bed lights stay on.
This is what I did. I installed a 3 way switch in a hole in the side of the bed right by the tailgate so I can turn them on from there or an upfitter. On-off-Upfitter.
I'll have to add pics later won't work from mobile.
After further review.....I think this is the way to go, though I do like the magnetic switch idea. Can you send the pic of your setup along with some details?
My vote would be for the uplifter install. I did the same simple LED bed liner strip lights up under the bed side walls to the uplifter switch 2. Downside is that they only come on when the keys in, but makes it easy to control when you need them.
It was a fairly simple install and took probably only an hour. Wires ran down through the side wall body to the underside of the truck, and then just a single wire up to the driver's side wiring harness. There is not a wire from the uplifter switch to the outside, but they include a lead wire in your wire harness near the break pedal you can use to connect your interior uplifter to an external wire already outside of the firewall. It's found up near the brake master cylinder.
Let me know if you are thinking of going that route, and I can send you some pics.
Well i finally found my post from a while back. Good info on the whole thread located at this link. Sorry for the delay finally got to a computer, mobile just wouldn't work to post this stuff.
