So I installed cab lights on my truck today and want to hook them up directly to the headlight switch. I cant find a wiring diagram for my truck and I tried downloading the service manual in the faq but its a .rar file and have no clue what program to open it with. Anyways I know on my Ram the black wire with yellow stripe was the wire for the marker/parking lights. Is it the same on the Dakotas or what wire is it? Thanks much

 

i had a ram truck with cab lights. i wired mine to the ignition so the light was on if the engine was running, i ran it like that for a long time, no trouble. but note: even though cab lights are not required, if one is burned out they will give you ticket.

 

You need something like WinRAR to open the file. You can get it here:

http://download.cnet.com/WinRAR-32-b...-10007677.html

The thing with the headlights on a 2000 is that they are wired hot from the battery. They are switched on the ground side. So, hook your clearance lamps to the parking lamps.

On the headlamp switch, Connector 1, Pin 1 (bigger connector) a 20 gauge black with yellow tracer wire is switched for the park lamps.

 

i wanna see pics! i need to add some cab lights now since i got the chicken lights

 

If you wire the lights to come on with the parking lights, use a relay. The parking light circuit may not handle the extra load by itself, I think it is only a 10 amp circuit anyway. Use a Bosch 12 volt 30 amp relay and tap into the black/yellow wire at the headlight switch, connect that to terminal 86 on your relay. Connect terminal 85 to a good solid clean bare metal chassis ground. Connect terminal 87 to 12 volts fused at about 15 amps, maybe more or less depending on how much current your new lights draw, and then terminal 30 connects to the positive wire on each of the new cab lights. Be sure to fuse the 12 volt positive wire, within 6 inches of the point where you make the connection for power, like at the positive battery terminal. This will prevent a fire if the wire ever shorts to ground.

Jimmy

 

alright black wire with yellow tracer so the same as the rams. And I hooked up the cab lights on my ram the same way just spliced into the wire without using the relay and then put an inline fuse in it and they still work and that was over 2 years ago, my friend now owns that truck. And once I get them hooked up Ill take some pictures

 

you can grab the red or pink/black off of the ignition harness if you want to keep all the wiring inside the cab. like 01silver said, fuse it and also solder your connections. do use a relay as these are sensative trucks when coming to electronics.

 

Finally got a pic and some time to put it up on here.

 

thats ba. do you have a link for the lights?

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FORNTIER-PAT...8d76e6&vxp=mtr

Here you go. It says the lights are for a frontier or pathfinder but they're just universal cab lights like any other.