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Since purchasing my truck, I haven’t been satisfied with the location of the taillights. My truck is an M818 with a sectioned Deuce bed. It’s original configuration as a tractor places the taillights low on the rear frame crossmember, which is fine for a bobtailed tractor. However, the Deuce bed installed with a modest overhang off the rear crossmember, I find the lights a little to hidden and low in this original location to be readily visible.
Safety being paramount and my extreme distrust of these “head-up-the-@$$” Los Angeles drivers, I pondered many new locations and mounting systems to relocate the lights to a higher and more visible spot. I also decided this would be a good time to install a custom lighted license bracket. I will chronicle the fabrication and installation of this project here in this thread.
My decision was to mount a piece of flat bar steel to the 14 ½” overhanging rear cargo bed frame rails. I would remove the existing taillight/reflector brackets and remount them to the flat bar steel bracket higher and wider far added visibility. I chose ¼” X 4” flat bar hot rolled steel, purchasing 6 ft. just to make sure I had enough, for the new mounting plate.
I originally intended to mount the license on the left/rear mudguard. I decided instead to fabricate an aluminum bracket to attach behind the rounded reflector outcropping on the M818 style taillight bracket. I went with ¼”Thick X 6”W x 24”L 6061-T6 bare rectangle extruded aluminum. The 6” width would fit a license plate perfectly.
Other materials included 50 ft. of Prestolite 14AWG wire, a two foot grounding strap, 10 ft. of ½” mesh sleeving, a bunch of 3/8” and ¼” nuts, screws, bolts and washers, a couple bags (10 count) of male and female rubber shell connectors, one “Y” connector and a Grote 60151 license plate light.
Safety being paramount and my extreme distrust of these “head-up-the-@$$” Los Angeles drivers, I pondered many new locations and mounting systems to relocate the lights to a higher and more visible spot. I also decided this would be a good time to install a custom lighted license bracket. I will chronicle the fabrication and installation of this project here in this thread.
My decision was to mount a piece of flat bar steel to the 14 ½” overhanging rear cargo bed frame rails. I would remove the existing taillight/reflector brackets and remount them to the flat bar steel bracket higher and wider far added visibility. I chose ¼” X 4” flat bar hot rolled steel, purchasing 6 ft. just to make sure I had enough, for the new mounting plate.
I originally intended to mount the license on the left/rear mudguard. I decided instead to fabricate an aluminum bracket to attach behind the rounded reflector outcropping on the M818 style taillight bracket. I went with ¼”Thick X 6”W x 24”L 6061-T6 bare rectangle extruded aluminum. The 6” width would fit a license plate perfectly.
Other materials included 50 ft. of Prestolite 14AWG wire, a two foot grounding strap, 10 ft. of ½” mesh sleeving, a bunch of 3/8” and ¼” nuts, screws, bolts and washers, a couple bags (10 count) of male and female rubber shell connectors, one “Y” connector and a Grote 60151 license plate light.