The_Head

The local Dodge dealer told me you need some kind of a harness to add the clearance lights to a truck that doesn't have them. Was wondering if that is accurate.

They also wanted $280 in labor to install them...

peobryant

Just the cab lights?

wannadiesel

If they put them on straight and properly spaced, don't dent the roof or mess up the paint, and wire them properly then they earned that $280 in labor.

You don't need a special harness, but you need to make one. The harness is not usually there.

Machinos

After I dismantled my truck and put it back together I had the hardest time figuring out why the cab lights wouldn't work, it was because there was just a wire running down through the cowl that plugged into a single female connector. It's hardly a "harness".

93-12Smoke

When I updated my cab lights the old ones were a single wire and grounded through the screws themselves. The new ones required running a ground wire. The power wire came up the drivers side A pilar and across the cab to the passenger side. I ran my ground from the driver side to the passenger side and grounded them using a screm for the plastic trim on the passenger A pillar. There is a drawing someone has done floating around here somewhere showing all the proper spacing. Took me about two hours just to do the swap. So 280 for the whole job sounds reasonable, but I guess that depends on what you value your time at because everyones time cost something.

93-12Smoke

Post 13 has the diagram.

https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...ght=cab+lights

Jim Lane

That special harness is less then 8 feet of 16ga wire and 5 female bullet connectors.
I also made a ground harness along with the factory and ran it down the pillar with the power to a screw down by the kick panel.

If you paid $10.00 for each light and maybe $10.00 for the wire and a box of bullet connectors, you would have $60.00 into the job assuming that you already had your own drills and hole saw.

Paying $280.00 labor for such a simple job is outrageous but I guess people pay it everyday, the hardest part for me was getting the courage to drill holes in my truck.

BearKiller

I agree with both of you.


I would flinch at paying someone else to do this simple job for myself; but, on the other hand, I would NOT do the job for anyone else for a mere $280.



As for getting electricity to the cab-lights, harnesses are for horses and mules, just run two decent wires up the A-pillar and across the cab, leaving plenty of extra slack at EACH light, about 18" or so, so that you can easily take care of any future problems that may arise; you don't have to go all short-wired and neat, as all the slack wire is hidden between the layers and no one will ever know how smart you are.




I would GROUND each light via a GROUND wire, regardless of them grounding through the attachment screws.

Also, don't simply hang this dedicated GROUND wire on the first convenient screw; doing so, you might as well have just let the mounting screws be the grounds.

Route the GROUND wire to an easily accessible CLEAN grounded point with plenty of clean surface contact area for the ring-terminal, and plenty of screw-thread "BITE" within the metal.

I have adopted the habit of providing dedicated GROUND terminal bars where I know I have a good GROUND and can easily route any GROUNDs to the bar and simply put the ring under the screw.



When putting together the wires, whether you strip-and-twist or strip-and-crimp, SOLDER ALL connections, then use a couple (or three) layers of heat-shrink tubing over the joints.

On something like cab-lights, I would go ahead and "hard-wire" the lights to the wiring, and not rely on any bullet-connectors or spade-terminals.

The area between the cab layers is a cess-pool of humidity, both from poor design and human occupancy within the cab steaming things up with every breath; in such an atmosphere, any non-soldered connections, such as bullets or spades, are apt to soon corrode and cause intermittent contact, thus flickering lights.



If you use those silly little clip-together wiring splices, welllllllllll,,, I won't go into that.

6.7SMOKER

Any water leakage? I wanted to put them on my 3/4 ton, but I was told not to because they would leak. Any truth to that?

Trebor

You can eliminate 99% of your grounding issues if you use a properly sized stainless steel internal tooth lockwashers, electrical dissimilar contact grease, and stainless fasteners. See www.mcmaster.com for washers & fasteners. Also remember to paint the wire hole openings that you bore through the roof for the lights before you mount them. Use electrical contact grease on the mounting screws. This has worked trouble free for me for the last 40 years. The biggest & most common problem I have run into is using those crimp on splices that within a few years start electrolysis due to moisture that gets into the connector. This can be eliminated by simply dipping the end of the exposed conductor of the wire again in the contact grease followed up by applying liquid tape or shrink tubing over the splice. Remember that air + moisture + electrical current = electrolysis. It's entirely up to your personal preference if you want to run an additional ground wire. Just always remember to ground it using connections as specified above. Proper preparation is the key to longevity.

BearKiller

Leakage depends on the installer; you are cutting five sizable holes in the cab roof, and drilling ten screw-holes; YES, a thoughtless shoddy job will pour in the water like a hole in a boat.

That being said, I have driven and owned more cab-light equipped trucks than I care to count and have never noticed so much as a drip.

peobryant

My brother '97 used to have a leaking cab light. I'm not sure if the lights were originally on the truck or not, but they started to leak a little while after he bought it. It may have been because it just sat in the weather all the time, and the gaskets slowly started to deteriorate, but I think all he did was replace the gaskets, and the leak stopped.

So a poor install, could definitely lead to leaks.

Jim Lane

I just removed one of my lights about a week ago and the gasket is as dry as the day that I had installed them you could still see the imprint of the gasket as it sealed the hole.

Also I used no sealant, only the gasket also use the proper size hole for the screws so there is enough metal for the threads to bite into.

The factory lights will leak when they get old, the lens will crack from the heat of the lamp inside and just from sunlight letting the water inside the housing then it is drains down into the cab.

The ones that I have installed are one piece and are sealed so nothing should get inside
Jim

BearKiller

As he said, the plastic lenses will deteriorate with sunlight exposure and time, plus tree-limbs occassionally giving them a whack, thus allowing minor amounts of rain-water to intrude.

I have had good success in applying a heavy coat of clear finger-nail polish to old rare un-obtainable lens, letting the polish run into the union between the amber lens and it's base as well.


Cowl cracks, cowl rust-through, and windshield leaks are most often blamed on the cab-lights.

The_Head

I think I'm going to leave the roof alone now, lol.