Tailgate door light switch. Is it possible?

[EDGED]

Got to work the other day and my tailgate was open. I have a tonneau cover so I can't see if it's open from inside the truck and when I left for work it was dark and I never noticed it was open.
So I was wondering if I could wire a switch on the tailgate to the rear drivers side door switch so I would know when it's open. Has anyone done that before? Does anybody know what wires I would have to hook up and how they should be hooked up? Thanks all.

[lightninmike]

Im sure you could. Prob use an old style door switch... not the ones in the handle like in the doors of the truck.

[Galaxie]

Hooking up a swich would be childs play. An old door push button would be easy. I just wonder how to wire it into the circut.

Any ideas?

[worldwide73]

Switch grounds when door open correct? so couldn't you just wire inline with the other one or tap off the wire for the back door and get the affect as long both switchs were grounded when open or vise versa?

[JSchuricht]

Should be real easy. There are some potential issues with tapping into the factory door pin, so I would pull the cluster and trace the door open the lamp circuit. Once you find out if it's pos or neg switched, run a doorpin switch to the gate and feed it to the door open lamp either diode isolated for neg or diode isolated positive with a relay to reverse the neg signal from the switch.

[Acidsniper]

Originally Posted by JSchuricht

Should be real easy. There are some potential issues with tapping into the factory door pin, so I would pull the cluster and trace the door open the lamp circuit. Once you find out if it's pos or neg switched, run a doorpin switch to the gate and feed it to the door open lamp either diode isolated for neg or diode isolated positive with a relay to reverse the neg signal from the switch.

This. A simple old school door pin switch and the above. Done deal. Or if you want it to read in the information center you could tap in to the rear door wiring and do it that route as was mentioned above.

[EDGED]

Well I pulled the door panel to see what color wires went to the switch. Then pulled the pillar panel and tapped into the 2 wires and routed them to the box where I installed a momentary switch. That it and it works perfect. When the tailgate is open my dash shows the left rear door ajar sign. Kind of nice that it also turns on the box light. At least now I know if the tailgate is open.