buckied

Hey guys, I'm working on a 97 3500 that's had the bed removed and replaced with a flatbed. There is the biggest mess under that truck wiring wise and I have a short somewhere. My plan us to rip it all out and re-wire the lights on the bed. Does anybody have or know where I can get a wiring diagram for the rear lights without having to buy a service manual so I don't have to spend forever with a test light figuring what wire does what that comes out of the wiring harness?? Thanks in advance...

Backwoods Bumpers

Hey man, I'm not much help on the diagram, but neither is a chilton or haynes manual! No wiring is fun, but at least the back end of the truck is about the easiest one. I'm assuming your wiring mess is all around the back bumper/spare tire area. Here's my advice:

Locate the smaller important harnesses, like wheel speed sensor and fuel sending unit and tape them off. Then go in front of your mess and cut the rest of them. You'll only need 7 or 8 wires total from the front of the truck to run your lights and trailer wiring.

1. running (tail) lights
2. Left turn
3. right turn
4. reverse lights
5. ground
6. electric trailer brakes
7. maybe a constant hot for the trailer

maybe somebody will chip in on the factory colors. The book might actually show those. Who knows. This is how I would do it though. Good luck.

Oh, also - when I wire a flatbed or something, I always convert the wires to standard DOT colors. Just so troubleshooting in the future is easy. running lights are brown, left turn is yellow, right turn is green, brakes are blue, ground is white (sometimes black), constant hot is red, b/u lights are usually purple.

Lary Ellis (Top)

I tell you who has access to lots of wiring diagrams like that is a Body Shop. They deal with that stuff on a daily basis, fixing damaged wiring is a major part of their business. A local body shop MIGHT let you copy the page you need

buckied

Thanks, guys I remember that our local napa store can print these out... I got it goin now, DOT colors as well!