Homemade Clearance Light Harness Question

[xbrotherx]

My 96 f250 came with clearance lights installed. They are the large tear drop kind. So each one has a single black wire coming out of it and spliced into one red wire (if I remember correctly). Come to find out, that red wire doesn't terminate anywhere. It was either never connected or cut and just stuffed back up in the headliner, which explains why they never worked.

I found the factory harness to use down in the passenger kick panel but I was wondering if there is a harness clip/adapter I could attach to the red wire so I can simply plug the lights into the factory harness rather than having to cut the harness and splice/solder the red to the brown wire ( that's assuming the brown is the hot).

Any ideas?

[SuperCrutyPS]

This is just me, but I think I'd try to get power to the brown wire to 'check' the lights BEFORE hooking it to the trucks wiring. If the lights work that way, then you can hook it up. If they lights don't work, then you haven't wasted a lot of time hooking them up.

Just my opinion.

[xbrotherx]

Not a bad idea. Now, being I am not anywhere near being an electrician, how could I do that?

[SuperCrutyPS]

Well - A couple of ideas come to mind.

First strip off about 1/2" of insulation from the brown wire.

Next...if you have a long enough wire, you could run it from the battery to inside the cab or if not so long, find a point in the fuse box that is hot and then touch the other end of the wire to the brown wire.
-OR-
(this one is a bit redneck I guess) Either pull you truck next to another vehicle or visa-versa and use one of the sides of a jumper cable to run power from the other battery to the brown wire.

[xbrotherx]

Originally Posted by SuperCrutyPS

Well - A couple of ideas come to mind.

First strip off about 1/2" of insulation from the brown wire.

Next...if you have a long enough wire, you could run it from the battery to inside the cab or if not so long, find a point in the fuse box that is hot and then touch the other end of the wire to the brown wire.
-OR-
(this one is a bit redneck I guess) Either pull you truck next to another vehicle or visa-versa and use one of the sides of a jumper cable to run power from the other battery to the brown wire.

Hey, I could do those Thanks, I'll see if they work. Worse case, they don't and the hard part has been done for me .... the holes are already drilled. I just get a new set and a REAL harness to plug into the factory harness.

[rolsmojave3]

I went to the junkyard and got a cab light harness for $2. Worked real good. I think you could use a male spade terminal and hook it into the truck side for a while.