LED Reverse Lights and Dome Lights

[Rustyshackelford]

HI All,
I've been absorbing a ton from this great forum on my new truck so I thought I'd contribute.
I have two little kids that like to ride in my new M1009 and, when we leave grandma's house after dinner at 8pm it is DARK in the cab. Trying to strap in the kiddos in the dark, I quickly realized that an interior dome light was necessary.
I looked around and, having no carpet or interior, it was going to be a real challenge to run wires in the blazer and make them look good. I LOATHE poorly installed electrical components.
It might not be the only way but I decided the best way for me to run the wires was exposed in looms with loom clamps. This is they way most of the other wires are run so it will fit the theme of the truck.

I connected to the headlight switch, just like the factory dome light would, and ran my wires up for one central light and one rear light. It was pretty simple and I think it turned out well. These LED COB lights from Amazon are great (so far), for eleven bucks shipped you can't go wrong. They come with some two sided tape that sticks very well as long as you clean the surface beforehand.



Once I did this dome light mod I found some of the same COB lights on amazon that were 3.5'' long. It occurred to me that the rear black out lights are about the same size so I installed these over the old dead black out lights. I wired them directly into the existing reverse light circuit and stuck them on with some double sided 3M tape. If the tape fails I will revisit the adhesive at that point. The lights put out a lot of light and easily quadruple the light from the old reverse lights.

 

[2002ford]

That is great setup for reverse lights. I may borrow your idea.

 

[Rustyshackelford]

That is great setup for reverse lights. I may borrow your idea.

I hope you do. Use lots of wire loom, tape, and good connectors! You'll need to add a spacer between the BO light and the new cob light. An additional piece of two sided tape works great.

 

[Recovry4x4]

I COB light onthe back of my contact truck. Work great as backups. There is a thread somewhere with pics. Good work on this.

 

[MarcusOReallyus]

Yep. Based on Recovery's thread on his truck, I bought some COBs for my M101 trailer. I live in the country, and it's tough backing up a trailer when it's country dark outside. THe COBs won't draw much power, so they should work pretty well being run through a trailer connector.

Maybe one of these days I'll even get around to actually installing them!

I have about 6 or 8 off-road halogen lights laying around, and I plan to use one or two of them for backup lights on the M1028. No shortage of power available there.

 

[llong66]

Rusty,
I have an M1008,so I am not 100% sure, but I would bet the cab portion is the same. Anyway, when I put in my dome light, an APC light with the blue and white lights, I ran the wire up the A pillar, under the interior rubber trim, then removed the drivers side visor and after marking the location for the light drilled a hole through the inner layer of the roof and fished the wire out through it, under the actual
location for the light, grometed the hole and pulled my power wire through. I simply grounded the light to one of the bolts holding the light to the roof via the jack nuts, the same kind used on the antenna brackets on the outside of the truck, this way the wiring is virtually invisible, just a very small portion between the rubber trim around the door and visor hole, easily hidden with a lil rapcom CRC sub. Right now I simply have it tied into one of the always hot fuses but I may eventually wire it in off the BO lights so it only works when the service lights are enabled.
Gota love those rubber covered loom clamps the military uses thought! Great job and good looking instal! I hope you enjoy tinkering on yours as much as I have mine!

Good luck!
Greg

 

[Recovry4x4]

These LEDs draw such little power, its amazing what you can do with them. I have a 5 meter strip of them in a steel topper that was on my M1008. Since getting the SECM body I put the topper on an M101 trailer. I added a 12V 8ah batt and a 5 watt solar panel. The light often burn for hours but the batt never dies. The sun keeps it just right. I say this because you could add lights and self contain them easily on a trailer.