The plate light is hysterically bright man. I'd see if there was a way to switch that sucker under the bumper somewhere so I had a handy camp light without having to get into the truck. Sorry to see you're having issues with the gate window though.

Regarding the pix, I've been using Flickr forever and it works everywhere easily but this board. I take a LOT of pictures. I mean like several thousand a year and post them on about a dozen boards and this is the only one that has trouble with it for some reason. The largest Photography board on the internet uses vB and Flickr a ton. No idea why this place has hiccups but there's all kinds of customization for boards that could cause issues and I can't fault anyone that runs boards for wanting to mess with those headaches. I hate dealing with them for work.

 

Can't stand Flickr either.... But its largely what ppl are used to I suppose.....

I love the PB pay version, no commercials and lots of storage. I just couldn't deal with starting another account as I can barely keep up with all the freaking crap I have already! lol.

Once again, congratz

 

Yeah, unfortunately services like photobucket are non-starters for me due to the forced compression and file size limits. Defeats the purpose of the majority of my photos but I totally get it for folks not that into it.

 

Dunno if you recall when I did my rear window motor replacement but I discovered that my one of my defroster wires was also ripped off and just dangling in the tailgate too. As for there being a short. Yes there has to be a short I can't think of anything else that would cause the window to go up when I turn my lights on.

BTW how did you get the connector to stop scratiching your rear window because i noticed some lines already coming up on my newly tinted rear view window. i dont want it to scratch it off like it did on the last one.

Mark i would gladly take you up on your offer. This tailgate problem has been haunting me ever since i bought this damn truck. that is one thing that i absolutly hate having to work around.

Also that mod that Eric did; does that mean that by only having the 3 main cables connected it would make the tailgate constantly hot. meaning i can open and close the window even if the ignition is off??? Also It is definitely not the bulb. I already took that into consideration and connected it somewhere else in my truck to trouble shooot the bulb and it did work. So it is definitely gonna be a fuse.

Yes my dome/map lights work. Its only the deck lamp and it's illuminating button that have gone out.

Yea i agree it is really bright. i knew it would be bright but dang i really wasnt expecting it to be that bright haha. as for using the light for camping.... I have already considered that option lol that is definitely gonna be great to have when going on camping trips. ill just remove my license plate and turn this baby on and direct the light toward the camp sight hahaha

I like the amount of storage flicker offers but I can't get IMG codes off of their mobil app or by going straight to the website on my phone. And on the PC it has extra links and I find myself having to edit the codes I copy for each and every one just to get the img code.

Plus its like I said I've been on photobucket since 2004. I guess I'm kinda used to it. Dunno if I'd wanna pay $30 yearly so I just made another photbucket account. Thats what i might just end up using i guess. I just hope photobucket jumps on this problem that made all my images crash.

 

Ohhh i understand what happened now. It's not the storage that reached the limit on photobucket. It was the Bandwidth limit. (every time somebody loads a page that i have uploaded images to photobucket will then count each picture load toward my 10gb allowance. So it is the bandwidth allowance that i went over. That allowance will reset in 2 days and all will be back to normal. Either way i am still gonna make another free account. loli'll just continue all my pix using the 2nd photobucket.

 

i just put a couple thick zip ties in there around it to hold the connector in its retainer which is kinda floppy on its clip

also a few others to keep the wire harness from moving around in there which i think is how that one wire got chafed

the defogger wires have a strain relief clip near the connectors on the window it clips into the window channel leaving a bit of slack on the connectors

it looks like that fails (tape lets loose) an then the up an down of the window eventually breaks the wires from their connectors i re-taped mine after the repairs and also zip tied the strain relief to the two wires so it wont just fall off, those two wires do have a lot of slack to travel with the window

 

darn....

*LACK OF WHITE REAR LICENSE PLATE LIGHT (24601 VC). It must illuminate the license plate, not project light behind the vehicle.

24601. Either the taillamp or a separate lamp shall be so constructed and placed as to illuminate with a white light the rear license plate during darkness and render it clearly legible from a distance of 50 feet to the rear. When the rear license plate is illuminated by a lamp other than a required taillamp, the two lamps shall be turned on or off only by the same control switch at all times

 

desoider a couple of the LED's in the center of the bar Rich that'll tone it down

 

might have a bigger problem on my hands. I tried messing around with connecting the cables to the actual red lights of my tail light yesterday. It worked fine when i tapped into the passenger side tail light. but when i tapped into the driver side the light just completely went out. it wont turn on at all. Not even when i connect it directly to the battery's 12v. dunno gonna have to remove the plastic covering and see if nothing got burnt up

 

Dang! I'm really sorry bubba..... Maybe we can coax RAD up here to dig around while I wire up a couple things....... Ok, I shouldn't publicly volunteer him! Haha....

I'm assuming you mean just the single light went out, and the bulb is fine?

I know you're going to post pictures here right? I'm a little confused as to where you tapped in.

I had an idea for your license plate light... Like putting in an angled piece of metal in front of the light to prevent too much lighting of the ground , but in reality , it will still reflect off of the plate even if it is angled to 30 degrees facing the license plate. Maybe you could use that light for something else and order something much smaller ? Or if you simply soldered the ends maybe you could return it? I'm not saying it won't work I'm just curious if you had to would that work, you know what I mean? I think too or maybe even one SMD bulb is likely to be plenty to light up your license plate and not cause any reflection.

 

http://www.superbrightleds.com/morei...ate-light/250/

 

When someone volunteers another who is not around, that absent person has been volunTOLD. LOL!

Yeah, probably burnt wire to that one tail light.

Re: Super Bright Lights
I would re-locate that LED bar to the read deck, Rich. Then just get a couple of inexpensive Trail Gear marker lights to repalce the bar.

 

That link I posted is like $5.95, RAD.... it's also complete with the housing on the rear and angled downward specifically to light only the license plate and not half of the block. Lol. Just my personal opinion but I think that is a much better way to go. In all reality you could totally lose the upper lip off of the license plate backing plate. I'm not saying it won't look better with it there but as it stands right now it is probably in the way and he would need to move any license plate light that is actually a license plate light up a little bit on the backing plate...

You are clearly more knowledgeable in this field in me but the only benefit I see and putting Trail Gear lights in would be because he could just melt them to the lip up there that he installed... However they do not have a refractive lip facing downward that aids in preventing flooding.

 

Nice! That's better, Mark.

 

Alright guys. THANK YOU MARK and RAY for your help on this temporary problem i had. Mark i checked out your link today while at work and rather then wait 3 more days i hit up my local PepBoys Auto Prts store and found these! for approx $3.49 each.
you can see the size difference compared to my LED strip.


When i dismounted my LED strip i found that my ground wire, for some odd reason, wasnt making good ground. AND THAT IS WHY THE DARN LIGHT WASNT WORKING YESTERDAY! I honestly have no clue to why it didnt want to turn on because i soldered my wires together but w/e im happy no wires were burnt.

As for your guys's questions about the tail lights being burnt or bulbs as mark asked. That was not what i meant. i had meant the lights on the LED strip wouldnt work. The tail lights would all work fine. but like i said i got to the bottom of this mystery today.

Here is my driver side tail light taken off. I connected my LED strip to the top 2 connectors on the right hand side. The colors were White with black stripe, and green with red dots. In the end these are the 2 wires that i tapped into for the 2 license plate lights that i bought.



I routed my wiring from the license plate, through the tire carrier back plate hole, down the tire swing, under the truck and into the rear driver side panel. I used that plastic wiring cover wrap whatever that stuff is called, along with some shrink wrap every couple of sections(just to hold it closed)


Here is how it sits as of now. No need for special switches or running power and ground wires anywhere. Just tapped into that red light like i was supposed to from the start lol.



I honestly thought that i had this stuff wired correctly the first time but apparently the wire wasnt making good ground. and i was trying to grab power off the tail gate wires. i was actually tapping into the wrong set of wires. So I'm good now.

OH yea and i also installed matching LED lights on my inclinometer. Now my dashboard all matches with Cool White LEDS! woot!


And here is a full video i made on a couple of upgrades i did these past few days but also covering everything about the tire carrier bumper that we made. Check it out...

 

Another thing I can do with the LED strip if I decide to just leave those 2 license plate lights on is to either use it as a brighter engine bay light, mount It to the tire swing and tap into my reverse lights. Or buy 2-3 more lights like this and use them as rock lights they're definitely built durible enough to handle. I mean they are water proof and corrosion proof, all I'd need to do is mount them on all 4 sides of the truck and run a switch. Itd be a neat mod to have.

But like I said I like the clean look of this LED strip and I'd really like to consider darkening the color so it will dim out a lot of that brightness. We'll see...

 

you can use any resistor OR a potentiometer which is just a variable resistor an dial in how much dimming you want

if you have your packaging go to http://www.hebeiltd.com.cn/?p=zz.led.resistor.calculator put in the values asked it will tell you resistance then double it which will drop the light bar brightness by half

 

Wooohoooo! My pleasure bubba.... now for the tango-6 step tailgate operation rig-up! Hehe..... Should be fun getting that gremlin!

You could also use led bulbs for those licence plate lights if u keep em... just slap some led bA5's or 7's in em and poof! Lol..... Wait... are they already LED in those? For $3.49?????? I'm guessing not.... but great fix bubba!

 

Not saying what to do, but I would use that strip for interior or otherwise lighting.... dim it? Ur plate is good for now, and it seems it would take too much moding to make a bright led strip DIM? Lol.... or shielded? ..... Light up ur cabin with it or mount it to ur shell behind the lip/shell to cab mount..... or engine bay, YES! Its nice, use that sucker! Lol

 

Nice, Richard! and thanks for the video.