Running ditch lights wires through the fenders

Since my ditch lights are mounted to my mirrors, I was planning on making my life easy and running the wires through the opening at the door hinge and through the fenders into the engine bay. Anyone have any suggestions on a clean way to run them? There's a nice opening at the tops of the fenders, but that puts the cables next to the hinges and I haven't figured out a way to secure the cables away from the hinges. Other option is to go lower inside the fenders, above the inner fenders in the wheels wells, but haven't figured out an easy way to get the cables back up to the firewall. I'm not running them through the doors and into the cab because I want to keep all the wiring external to the cab except the switch in the dash. Getting tired of running stuff through the firewall and am going to need to drill another wiring hole soon, but not for these.

It's gonna be 100 here today so trying to look at photos of how to do it rather than standing around outside in the heat trying to figure it out.

 

Why wouldn't you use the stock rubber boots where all the other OEM cables run thru? Pop both ends out of the door, run a long zip-tie thru them as a fish, then pull your cables. Then route into the engine bay via the firewall grommet (untape OEM harness on the bay side, and fish similarly, then re-tape the grommet boot.

 

Are you talking about where the wires run from the doors into the cabs? I'd have to figure out some way of getting the wires from the lights inside the doors for that, then run them through the firewall to where the relay is in the engine bay. Trying to keep all the wiring out of the cab except for the switch.

By keeping all of the wiring in the engine bay and fenders, it'll make my life a lot easier if/when I decide to add more lights to the setup.

 

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Doing what you're suggesting, the best viable option may be finding a shortcut to slide under the cowl. If you haven't done the re-seal on the two known-leaky cowl clips, could be a good time to pop the cowl and handle that. Meanwhile, if you pop the cowl, hit the Definitive Leak sticky thread, and order a couple of the 'cowl leak' fasteners, the white sockets and the black balls, you *will* break a few, and if you don't, buy a fuckin' lottery ticket, and remember your homey shifty` if you strike it rich. At least pay off my house or something

 

there’s probably room to run the wires through the side mirrors and into the inside of the door, then from there (like what shifty said) run fish them through the accordion door boot to cab.

There’s enough room inside the body of the side mirror for the mirror adjustment motor wires and defrost wires, so there might be just room to run two more wires in there as well? 18 gauge wire would be plenty thick enough to power up the Squad Sports.

 

I'm trying to avoid running anything else through the factory grommet because I already have amp wiring and a backup camera going through there, looking at another amp as well as additional lights and already expect I'll need to drill out a new hole in the firewall when I do that stuff. The relay for the lights is pretty close to the battery attachment, so if I ran them through the doors, I'd be running the ditch light harness from the mirrors, through the doors, through the firewall, close to the battery, and then the switch back through the firewall to the dash. Or I could run the harnesses through the fenders, into the engine bay, to the battery, and then just run the 4 wires through the firewall to the switch.

The lights came wired up with waterproof connectors and a full harness. The only part I'm planning on changing is the generic toggle switch to a more OEM looking one I got. Running them through the doors or mirrors or anything like that would require that I strip the connectors off the wires, and pull all the wires out of the housings they came in to run through the cab. I'll take some photos of the wiring setup laid out on the truck to explain what I'm talking about. I think it'll make more sense that way, but I'm gonna wait until in the morning because it's been 100º here all afternoon and I'm tired of sweating my ass off outside.

Edit:
I'm still planning on pulling the cowl before winter gets here. I've noticed a leak on the passenger side floor when there's more than a few inches of snow sitting on the cowl. Never from rain, only snow, so I'm sure it's those fasteners.

That's how I'm gonna run my puddle lights when I install them. I think I even figured out where to tap into the cargo light circuit to power them.