60centenergy's 2024 Lunar Rock SR5 TRD Sport

I almost wired my bed lights the same way but at the time I just didn't like using a wire tap on that wire where it's exposed. I'm curious how you go about yours. There's a guy in the Tacoma forum that makes wiring harnesses for niche setups like this on the Tacoma. I thought about hitting him up to see if he would make a splice/ interrupt plug n play harness for the Tundra's trailer light plug under the bed. The same way RSI uses a Y cable to splice into the brake lights.

This is his website but apparently you have to PM him on the Tacoma forum to contact him.

https://fbchs.square.site/

 

I hear ya. All the wire connections I’ve done/will do to this truck are different than my last Tacoma. I’m not doing any T-taps. I decided all I’m doing will be removable if needed. I think I’m doing similar to the guy you’re talking about from TacomaWorld from how I read it.

What I do is I find out what wire I want to come off of for the mod I’m doing by using the routing and circuit sheets for our trucks. Then I find the part number of the connector and search it on Google. Usually places like AliExpress have a male to female wire harness that’s the cheapest out there but long delivery time. I’ll order that then use the wire(s) I need off that harness and I’ll plug it in line with the spot I want to “tap” into. This way there is no disruption of any OEM wiring. I can simply remove the harness and connect OEM plugs again.

I just came back in from trying all this out on the bed lights and the LEDs were dim in the truck bed. I’m thinking I don’t have enough current to power them as bright as they could be from that tap location for the center light... I tested the LEDs before installing them to the rails in the bed and they are very bright coming from a direct source of power so that leads me to my tap point not being good enough.

Now, I’m deciding what to do. I really wanted to tie it in to that center stop light assembly so it could be on that switch and come on when doors, tailgate, etc open up. I might do the same thing I did for the hood lights and have them on a momentary plunger switch so when the tailgate is opened they would come on. There will inevitably be that time I want to see in the bed when the tailgate is closed though, so still deciding what to do.

I’m open to ideas!

 

Yeah, you're spot on with your interpretation of my post. I wasn't super happy about it but I just wired 3 rock lights with magnetic bases directly off the battery with a switch installed on the inside corner of the bed and tailgate. As much as I wanted them tied to the tailgate, it has worked out pretty well. I have a smart cap on the truck so I still get the bed/ dome light when I open the tailgate but I also get super illumination from three rock lights when I want. It's handy when I open just the back window or the side win-doors. In the end, I'm not nearly as disappointed that I have a separate switch.

 

Right on! I like the sound of that setup. I’m slowly deciding that I’ll just run it to under the hood. I’ll poke around the circuit diagrams later and see if there’s another idea I come up with but it’s looking like direct power is the best with adding a manual switch.

 

I ran the power and switch wires along the frame directly from behind the battery down to the frame and then all the way back to the rear tail light. Drilled two holes in the aluminum corner pillar of the bed with a step bit. Top hole for light power wires, bottom hole at about 7/8" for the round switch that has a snap in fit. I bought some pretty bright rock lights from Amazon for $22 for 4. Bolted rubber coated magnets to them and used Deutsch connector y cables to split the power across the three lights. I also used magnet zip ties to secure the split conduit.

 

Looking good. Now if you don’t already have them, time for some bed lights.

 

Well done

I like the illuminated switch. Only illuminated when pressed and lights are on?

 

The 2025 1794 has lights in the bed itself

 

Well, I'm stumped on where to pull the power from circuitry back around the tailgate/truck bed. I was outside probing around different connector pins during my lunch from work and didn't come up with anything to use. Looks like Toyota really went out of their way to make wire harness and pin differences for those that weren't blessed with the factory bed lights or tailgate handle light from factory lol

I think I'm just resorting to running this to under the hood. I'll go to the fuse box again like I did for my under hood lights. I may even just use the same add a fuse location as the under hood lights. I'll measure amp draw for both sets of lights to make sure it's safe enough.

 

Maybe this post might help?

Guy was trying to tap into the same lead for the bed lights near third break light - for his puddle lights.

Ultimate TUNDRA Wiring Diagrams Collection | Page 7 | Toyota Tundra Forum
#182/183

 

Thanks for sending. That thread is great @RainMan_PNW did an excellent job gathering all into. The routing and circuit PDFs are the first thing I downloaded for my truck.

I’ll have to check that spot from those posts. I did check further downstream from that connector and the line wasn’t in the harness near the tailgate. It might be back there though and they used a different harness further downstream that dropped the wire for lower trims like mine.

 

Bed Lighting

This one took me a while. Probably the most involved one I've done so far but that's because I thought I could come off the +12V lead from the top center third brake light - which didn’t work out. I found the circuit for that and even made my own harness tie in for the lead. Turns out, either I don't have enough current flowing that line to power the bed lights AND the center light and/or my bed lights just naturally need more current. I never ended up measuring the current they really needed and what was in the line.

I really just wanted the ability to have them come on with the center lights and when doors/tailgate was opened as well as be switched from that inside switch. I still got them wired up though and it's through the battery like most do.

Parts/tools I used:

• Matt Gecko Bed Light + Under Hood Light kit - $151.50 total shipped (see my under hood light writeup for more info)
• $10 RED WOLF Wire Harness Cloth Tape 1" x 50 FT Electric Wiring Loom Harness Flexibility High Abrasion Resistance Adhesive for Automobile Electrical Engine Noise Dampening Insulation 2 Rolls
  Wire Harness Cloth Tape - $9.99
  
• Add-a-circuit fuse tap - $6.79
• Zip ties - should have enough in the kit from Matt Gecko

• Tools:
  • A couple beers
  • Wire strippers
  • Solder/butt connectors/some means of connecting wire to each other
  • Multimeter
  • Something to fish with (I use a landscape flag)
  • About half-day to full-day of time (what it took me from all the business of trying to tie into the center light - should be quicker if you just go by my writeup)

I fished the positive +12V wire from the bed area back to the fuse box near the battery. You could do it the other way around if you wanted.

The kit gives plenty of wire for this. I ended up making two wire runs bonded together about half the distance (one for +12V and other for ground). Then took a single wire past that to under the hood. The ground wire stopped at an OEM ground bolt at the frame (I’ll show that later).

Start by tapping on the lights around the bottom of the frame rails. I started on the passenger side where the wire connection would be and walked it around the bed. I tried centering up the lights as best I could on the rails.



I wrapped the harness run with my harness cloth tape. I found a good spot to take from the truck bed to cavity of the truck (passenger side). There’s a little hole around the bottom of rail/top off the side bed where the rear pillar of the truck bed is.





Then I took the tail light off and laid to the side to access this cavity area.



You can see the green of the flag where this pokes through.



Then I needed something flexible, with some length to it to fish the wire through. My solution? More flags! lol I had this from an old go kart. A broom, extension pole - really anything will work here since it’s a large cavity. I taped the other end to the pole and pushed it through.

Just leave some extra around where the tail light opening is as we’ll make final connections here later.





Here’s a pic of the wire through the cavity. I got it above that structural member around the wheel well. I circled a section of the wire here so you can see.



Here’s the other end of the pole and then I used a zip tie to a bracket for this wire loom where I’m pointing. This is to try to help with support from that long run from the bed location.



After a zip tie goes there to hold it up, I let it drop down following that loom then went on the INSIDE of the frame following the brake lines and did a could more zip ties (didn’t get a picture of this step).

Now this is where the 2 wires will split around halfway down the frame. You can see I have wrapped with the cloth tape up to this split. You can also see, I used the round ground connector that comes in the kit here for one wire. Also notice that one wire is green here - I ended up using some trailer wire I had left over but you can get by with using only what’s sent in the kit as he sends plenty - it’ll just all be the same black color so will somehow need to keep them identified.



There’s a ground point in the top of the frame here. I just backed that bolt out and added my ground wire in line and tightened everything back up.



Then I just followed those brake lines up the frame towards the front passenger wheel.





Then I popped the hood and used my go kart flag to fish the wire up towards the fuse box. Here are a couple pics of the location I used.





Then I routed it by hand under the large wires between the battery and fuse box. Can’t really see the wire here but I have the path drawn in red.



Then I routed around the fuse box and up the entry where the other wires come in.



I tested and came up with many constant hot places in the fuse box that weren’t occupied but went with this one for ease of installation. I just used the 5A fuse that came with the kit.



Okay, so now you’re done with everything upstream. Now to finish the connections downstream where the switch will be for the lights.

There are 2 switches that come with the hood + bed lights kit. I didn’t use their switch for the hood lights so had both to choose from. I decided to go with the push button one vs the toggle style. Just personal preference really - you could use either one here.

Here I soldered on a couple longer leads to what came on the push switch then wrapped with my cloth tape.





Then I poked that through the hole where the bed light wires were ran from back earlier in the post.

Here are the final connections. The green going to the red wire in this picture is the run from the +12V at the fuse box directly to the bed lights. Then, the 2 black wires are to the switch. I am switching from ground circuit.



Everything is then wrapped with cloth tape and then zip tied together in a little spool. Then I zip tied this to the small tab that is on a bracket in the well of the tail light area. I did look at this and that’s not used by the tail light when it’s connected so should be good to use.



Now you should have something like this on the inside of the bed. Now, you can bolt back on your tail light that you took out - just be careful with the wires behind it not to pinch anything.



Now, how do we secure the switch? I thought about this a good bit. I could have simply drilled a hole in the bed and had this mounted nicely there but my mission is completely reversible and no extra holes. So… I made myself a fancy holder for this on my 3D printer!

I did a quick design where it is mounted to the back of the bed rail. My bed rail is dropped on brackets and has space in the back since I have the top tri-fold cover. I designed it where I can use an M8 bolt with a captured nut on the back end since I couldn’t get a tool up there to hold the nut when tightening the bolt from the front end.

I used some transparent PETG. Yes, I probably should have used black but I ran out of it recently and this is all I had. Don’t roast me too bad lol







Here it is installed on the rail. It allows other items to slide past it on the rack.



This is the final product! Best pic I got once finished. Everything works great and my mount for the switch is very secure - that PETG material is strong.

 

Illumination Wires Source

This is a little project to tap into the ILL+ and ILL- circuit from the combination switch assembly. I had originally tapped into the radio harness for this circuit but decided I wanted to change this. I also have future plans for the combination switch assembly (possibly going to add my own switches here one day).

Parts/tools:

• Harness male to female for the 90980-12553 connector - $10.59 shipped - funny enough this harness is advertised as 12pin but I looked at the pic carefully and also confirmed when it came in it is actually the 16pin connector we need and does indeed match the OEM connector part number that we were looking for
• ~5’ of wire - 2 colors (5’ each wire) (preferably green and white to match OEM colors) - I had some lying around the shop
• Wire cloth tape (see my above posts where I’ve used this)

• Tools:
  • Wire strippers
  • Solder and soldering iron
  • Landscape flag for fishing

Use your wire strippers to GENTLY strip back about a quarter of an inch of sleeve to expose the #8 and #9 wires roughly in the middle of the run from the harness.

I try and follow the OEM colors for things. #8 is ILL- and #9 is ILL+.







Then I wrapped the solder points with electric tape then some length of the cloth tape on top of that.



Then I took apart the dash up to the combination switch assembly. Then I tied on the end of the wires from that hadn’t been connected yet to the end of the glad and led down the cavity with the color end of the flag.



I routed it along the under side of the steering wheel and then popped the driver side access panel to get the wires from the other end. You can see the rough route here.



Then I changed up my connections from my past mods to date from the previous run I did. The blue wire nut is the ILL+ connections, orange wire nut is still the grounded connection (for my footwell lights), and the grey wire nut is for ILL- connections.



Then I plugged the wire harness in line with the combination switch assembly and tried everything out and it went great! Then I disconnected the illumination wires from the modified radio harness from my anytime backup camera mod I did earlier.

This will be useful for any other switches I add in the future I can come off these wires as a single source point.

 

The wire nuts were only used for testing purposes and you're not leaving them, I hope? Wire nuts have no place in a vehicle.

 

I hear ya. I just have them there for now. They’re taped tight too (after that pic I posted).

 

Fun little key fob leather case from scAmazon. It looks great! Keeps wear off the fob.

Here’s the

$19 FFCMAN Compatible With Toyota Tundra 2022 Key Fob Case Premium Leather Case Protector Key Fob Cover Smart Remote Holder

link (I got the “brown-b” color - The scAmazon pic doesn’t do it justice. The actual case is much darker brown in person like my pics show)

 

This is gorgeous!

 

Thanks!