A bundle of wires is hanging out the bed rail of a late family member's Tundra. What are they?

Hello everyone,

I had a cousin who was a 50-year master carpenter. He recently passed away, and his widow offered me his 2010 Tundra.

I am going to be making a much bigger introductory post soon, as I'm happy to be joining this great community, but for right now, I'm just trying to figure out what this bundle of wires is, that's hanging out of the bed rail cap on the left side.

Any ideas what these are for?

Thank you all, I look forward to being a part of this community!

 

Do you know if the truck ever had a camper shell on it? Maybe lights and a 3rd brake light?

My condolences on your cousin, very cool that his wife offered you his truck.

 

Sorry about your cousin. I'd guess camper shell lighting. Other than that, I have no idea.

 

Thank you both. Yeah, his widow's offer really surprised me, and I'm grateful. My cousin was 81 (Cousin once removed), but I'm only 30, so a truck like this is a HUGE boon.

Anyway, yeah, the truck does have a camper shell (I'm working on it right now, which is why it's not in the photo) and the camper shell has a break light, so I figured it was for that too, except the weird thing is the camper's break lights have no wires or connectors coming off them, and these wires are coming from inside the truck's body, under the rail cap. They're basically just being pinched between the cap and the body frame itself. So, where are they intended to actually emerge from?

And furthermore, I don't personally care to have the camper's break light working, since the truck's own brake lights work fine, so what should I do with these wires? Cut and cap them? Or just tuck the whole bundle somewhere?

 

Do you know if the wires are hot? (with lights on) Got a voltmeter?

If the shell has interior lights it'd be nice to have them operable.

A lot of times people will route them in through one of those holes in the bed wall (I see one up top, a few inches below your bed rail, and there may be one down low too.)

With camper shells people will often use connectors that allow you to plug/unplug the lights if you plan to take the shell on/off.

Otherwise just cap 'em off.

 

Yeah, testing them with a multimeter is the next step. I never thought they'd be for cap lighting, though, so I was looking for an auxiliary switch in the cab, I never thought that it might be connected to the brake system. I'll give that a check, thanks!

 

Alrighty, so, I did some testing, and sure enough, one of the red wires supplies 10V DC when the brake lights are engaged. The other red wire supplies 77 mV, which makes me think it's a current leakage, and it would probably go to 10V as well when the reversing light is engaged?

In any case, now that I know I have break power coming to the cap, I'll see about wiring it up again. I think the old light bar in the cap is dead. The wires have two in-line 5A fuse boxes, and both fuses are blown.

 

Cool!

I wonder if that other one might be wired to the door lights that come on when you open your door?

FYI, if it's hot &/or you figure it out, for about $35 you can get some great little LED light strips that are made specifically to fit truck beds/caps. I put some under my tonneau cover and they make my life SO much easier when loading stuff in/out or looking for something at night.

Nilight 3PCS 60" Bed Light Strip 270 LED with On/Off Switch Blade Fuse Splitter Extension Cable for Cargo Pickup Truck SUV RV Boat

https://www.amazon.com/Nilight-TR-0...sprefix=nilight+truck+bed,aps,203&sr=8-1&th=1

 

Alas, it doesn't seem to be connected to the bed light switch or door light switch at all, which makes me think the only remaining option is the reversing light.

I would love to have interior lighting like that.

 

Bummer... 1 for 2 though, you got the brake light!

Yeah, the lights are pretty handy.

Really pretty easy once you get power into the bed. I wanted constant hot so I ran it straight to the battery, did a 12V/USB receptacle too.

 

That's a clean install, well done!