I want to wire up some auxiliary lights up on the rear of my truck. Did it on my old truck cause the back-up lights quit working. New truck has very dark rear windows and I parallel park constantly. Here's my question.... I want to try to hook these aux. lights up to come on with the back-up lights when I throw her in reverse but I also want to be able to turn them on manually with a switch in the cab. my concern is if i turn them on manually the back-up lights will come on too and if i remember correctly the back-up light switch is tied in with the neutral safety switch which i assume could cause a problem. Any thoughts?

 

You need to wire in a relay. Use the "turn on" lead to tap into your reverse lights. The rest are power, ground, switch controls. If you leave the switch ON all the time, the lights will come on automatically when you put the truck in reverse.

 

I agree with dirty dog. I have a 3-way switch wired into a relay for the same purpose. If my switch is up, the lights will be on at any time off of the battery power, middle position is always off, and the down position will allow them to only come on when the factory rev lights come on. You will have to tap into the factory rev light wire, incase you didnt know....

Edit: here is a picture of my switch... not that it helps but nonetheless....

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/m...e66/truck6.jpg

 

Alright thanks. Thats actually exactly what i wanted to do (with the 3 way switch and all) Any suggestions as far as type of relay or where to pick one up? And couldn't i accomplish the same with just a 3 way switch or is the relay a necessity? I've done some wiring before but the more detailed information I get for this, the better.

P.S. moosefire66, definatly diggin' the mounting position of your switches. Thanks for your help...both of you.

 

you could do just the 3-way switch, however it is not advised. the relay takes the power from the battery and uses that to power the lights, not your actual factory rev light wire. the factory wire is just used to activate the solenoid, which then draws the pwer it needs from the battery. If you direct wire it to your switch, you could burn up or kill your factory reverse light switch. I would strongly recommend the relay. As far as what type, it doesnt really matter. I just went to the parts counter and asked for a universal 30A relay, with a mounting tab attached to the top of it.

 

Ok that makes sense. thanks for your help.

 

These wiring diagrams helped me in putting some extra reverse lights in.

 

I might have to consider this. I hate not being able to see at night when I back up. About 8 months ago I drove down and unlit street that led to a dead end and I had to turn around. I pulled into a driveway and backed up. My reverse lights we so dim I freakin knocked down a fence. There was no curb so I couldn't tell I went that far. Guess what I had to rebuild that weekend. Don't start any of that teen driver crap though, this could have just of easily happened to an adult driver with poor nightvision like I have. Thank god Dodge bumpers are tough lol I didn't have a scratch on mine but his fence was a little messed up though.

 

Alright, got everything I need for the lights set up except for one thing. I cannot for the life of me find an illuminated 3-way rocker switch. I would even settle for one thats not illuminated but would prefer illuminated. Any idea's guys?