Overdrive
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Another quick and very cheap mod to add a door pin switch to the LMTV to turn on a dome light.
I quickly realized that in the dark when climbing into the LMTV and getting it fired up was an inconvenience screaming to be addressed.
Not wanting to drill or cut anything I decided to use the little hole in the door jamb to get a pin switch in there to activate some light.
As funny as it sounds a 3/4" electrical box knock out plug fits perfectly in that hole nice and tight.
This is a NO JUDGMENT zone on my inability to drill a hole into the center of a 3/4" plug but those little guys are tricky using a pair of channel locks and a drill press.
I grabbed a bag of door switch pins from Amazon and a bag of 3/4" electrical box knock out plugs then went to work. All these types of switches do is complete the ground circuit in a 2 wire setup. When you press the pin in it breaks the ground connection. Pretty simple huh? Well the pins I got are too long as they come, so when you try to close the door it bends the little pin so time for a little modification. On my prototype installed in the pic I cut the blade connector off the back of the pin and cut the plastic pin down a bit then crimped on a new blade connector. Talk about a terrible looking setup but this is the prototype. In the pic of the bag of plugs and additional switches you can see I was able to carefully pry off the end connector instead of cutting it off so I could slide it down further on the plastic pin then re-crimp it.
It takes trial and error to get the length right on how far out the pin needs to be to not bend and open the circuit when the door is closed. When I make the final version of the pin I will post a pic.
Also since this works on the ground side of things I added a ring connector and wire around the backside of the switch housing so there are two wires to hookup in between the ground circuit that makes it all work. Hope that makes sense. I didn't want to scrape paint or mess with trying to ground the switch to the hole in the cab which is why I went the 2nd wire route. So with this configuration the ring wire gets routed to a good ground and the switch wire goes to your lights.
You can route the wires inside the hole in the door jamb around to the underside of the dash (its open under there).
I am ashamed to post a pic of the working prototype switch all mangled and ugly but if someone wants to see it let me know and I will add it to this post.
Right now its just the switch with two wires dangling after testing it with a 12v source and test light until I get my aux power wired up for all my switch stuff. I have a covert idea for cab interior lights just for entering the cab at night using this switch that I will post once I get completed.
Thanks,
OD
I quickly realized that in the dark when climbing into the LMTV and getting it fired up was an inconvenience screaming to be addressed.
Not wanting to drill or cut anything I decided to use the little hole in the door jamb to get a pin switch in there to activate some light.
As funny as it sounds a 3/4" electrical box knock out plug fits perfectly in that hole nice and tight.
This is a NO JUDGMENT zone on my inability to drill a hole into the center of a 3/4" plug but those little guys are tricky using a pair of channel locks and a drill press.
I grabbed a bag of door switch pins from Amazon and a bag of 3/4" electrical box knock out plugs then went to work. All these types of switches do is complete the ground circuit in a 2 wire setup. When you press the pin in it breaks the ground connection. Pretty simple huh? Well the pins I got are too long as they come, so when you try to close the door it bends the little pin so time for a little modification. On my prototype installed in the pic I cut the blade connector off the back of the pin and cut the plastic pin down a bit then crimped on a new blade connector. Talk about a terrible looking setup but this is the prototype. In the pic of the bag of plugs and additional switches you can see I was able to carefully pry off the end connector instead of cutting it off so I could slide it down further on the plastic pin then re-crimp it.
It takes trial and error to get the length right on how far out the pin needs to be to not bend and open the circuit when the door is closed. When I make the final version of the pin I will post a pic.
Also since this works on the ground side of things I added a ring connector and wire around the backside of the switch housing so there are two wires to hookup in between the ground circuit that makes it all work. Hope that makes sense. I didn't want to scrape paint or mess with trying to ground the switch to the hole in the cab which is why I went the 2nd wire route. So with this configuration the ring wire gets routed to a good ground and the switch wire goes to your lights.
You can route the wires inside the hole in the door jamb around to the underside of the dash (its open under there).
I am ashamed to post a pic of the working prototype switch all mangled and ugly but if someone wants to see it let me know and I will add it to this post.
Right now its just the switch with two wires dangling after testing it with a 12v source and test light until I get my aux power wired up for all my switch stuff. I have a covert idea for cab interior lights just for entering the cab at night using this switch that I will post once I get completed.
Thanks,
OD
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