The Expedition Tank
08-05-2015, 06:16 PM
#11
JK Newbie
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Louisiana
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Really like your setup here with the tablet and ram mount, as I am looking to use a tablet for the same things using my phone as a hotspot. Can you give me some more info on what tablet and size you are using, as well as which ram mount series to purchase? Thanks for the info, and good job on the rear cargo storage also.
08-29-2015, 10:01 PM
#12
JK Newbie
Thread Starter
Really like your setup here with the tablet and ram mount, as I am looking to use a tablet for the same things using my phone as a hotspot. Can you give me some more info on what tablet and size you are using, as well as which ram mount series to purchase? Thanks for the info, and good job on the rear cargo storage also.
09-04-2015, 04:29 PM
#13
JK Newbie
Thread Starter
So if you've looked at the first page of the thread you've seen the cargo cover I put in.
This thing has been great except for one little detail. If you make a grocery run and return home after the sun has gone down the area under the cover is a liquid abyss of blackness. You can't see a thing in there since the cargo cover blocks all the light from the dome lights. It's time to fix this.
This write up is basically going to show how to hack an LED light into the factory wiring so that it will come on when the dome lights are activated by a door opening. I normally hate splicing into the factory wiring due to issues with things like the factory computer seeing some strange voltage change and freaking out. This however is a small set of LED lights with very little draw and should be fine. That being said if you use this write up to splice in a 50 inch LED light bar to come on when you open the door...well...you do so at your own risk. (You'd want to use a relay in that case by the way...)
So here we go. To begin with this is a lot easier if you lower the soft top (or remove the hard top I guess...I don't have one.) Unzip the covers and you'll end up with this:
From here you'll need to gain access to the factory wiring that's wrapped up tight in some protective electrical style tape. I used a razor blade to carefully access the wires. Don't dig in to deep or you'll cut into the insulation on the wiring and just make more work for yourself since you'll have to repair it. You'll end up with this:
A quick search of the internet revealed that the yellow wire with the white stripe is the one I wanted. This provides voltage to the dome light when the door is opened. The black wire is the ground and the yellow/blue wire supplies voltage when you turn the knob on the turn signal stalk to turn on the interior lights. Now I only wanted this light to come on when I opened the doors/tailgate. If you wanted to be able to turn it on using the interior light knob you'd need to splice into both the yellow/white and yellow/blue wire.
Now since I don't trust all the wiring diagrams on the internet I decided to test this out. I trimmed back a very small part of the insulation on the yellow/white wire and using a multimeter checked for voltage when the dome light was activated by opening a door.
Once I verified that I did indeed have the right wire I cut it, stripped the insulation back on both ends, added a crimp style connector and some heat shrink and connected everything back up while adding my new wiring.
I routed the wire down along the same path the factory wiring takes and dumped it out through the protective loom that goes from the body tub to the tailgate.
I crimped a connector on to make repairs or swapping the light out later a little easier. From here I mounted my cheap led light directly to the tailgate using two stainless screws using one of those for the ground connection. This light is mounted on a base that allows it to pivot back and forth so I can aim in into the cargo area or out past the drivers side of the vehicle. I picked up two of these led lights years ago on ebay and they've been sitting in a box in the garage ever since. I buttoned everything up and tried it out.
Success. It may not look that bright in the picture but the sun is out! Much brighter at night and quite useful.
This thing has been great except for one little detail. If you make a grocery run and return home after the sun has gone down the area under the cover is a liquid abyss of blackness. You can't see a thing in there since the cargo cover blocks all the light from the dome lights. It's time to fix this.
This write up is basically going to show how to hack an LED light into the factory wiring so that it will come on when the dome lights are activated by a door opening. I normally hate splicing into the factory wiring due to issues with things like the factory computer seeing some strange voltage change and freaking out. This however is a small set of LED lights with very little draw and should be fine. That being said if you use this write up to splice in a 50 inch LED light bar to come on when you open the door...well...you do so at your own risk. (You'd want to use a relay in that case by the way...)
So here we go. To begin with this is a lot easier if you lower the soft top (or remove the hard top I guess...I don't have one.) Unzip the covers and you'll end up with this:
From here you'll need to gain access to the factory wiring that's wrapped up tight in some protective electrical style tape. I used a razor blade to carefully access the wires. Don't dig in to deep or you'll cut into the insulation on the wiring and just make more work for yourself since you'll have to repair it. You'll end up with this:
A quick search of the internet revealed that the yellow wire with the white stripe is the one I wanted. This provides voltage to the dome light when the door is opened. The black wire is the ground and the yellow/blue wire supplies voltage when you turn the knob on the turn signal stalk to turn on the interior lights. Now I only wanted this light to come on when I opened the doors/tailgate. If you wanted to be able to turn it on using the interior light knob you'd need to splice into both the yellow/white and yellow/blue wire.
Now since I don't trust all the wiring diagrams on the internet I decided to test this out. I trimmed back a very small part of the insulation on the yellow/white wire and using a multimeter checked for voltage when the dome light was activated by opening a door.
Once I verified that I did indeed have the right wire I cut it, stripped the insulation back on both ends, added a crimp style connector and some heat shrink and connected everything back up while adding my new wiring.
I routed the wire down along the same path the factory wiring takes and dumped it out through the protective loom that goes from the body tub to the tailgate.
I crimped a connector on to make repairs or swapping the light out later a little easier. From here I mounted my cheap led light directly to the tailgate using two stainless screws using one of those for the ground connection. This light is mounted on a base that allows it to pivot back and forth so I can aim in into the cargo area or out past the drivers side of the vehicle. I picked up two of these led lights years ago on ebay and they've been sitting in a box in the garage ever since. I buttoned everything up and tried it out.
Success. It may not look that bright in the picture but the sun is out! Much brighter at night and quite useful.