60" LED Tailgate Light Bar Options

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4x4TruckLEDs.com

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So wire it into your taillights if you have trouble. I plan to use my trailer wiring unless I have issues
 

WhatExit?

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I'm going to wire it into my taillights as I'd rather not install it using the trailer plug and then find out I should've wired it into my taillights.
 

Toadster

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well dammit - I was going to install my tailgate bar (finally) and saw that my truck has something bolted in where there are empty holes in this video...

AGfqogp.jpg
 

lottp

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well dammit - I was going to install my tailgate bar (finally) and saw that my truck has something bolted in where there are empty holes in this video...

AGfqogp.jpg

Yep...that's the open/close sensor. I had to make my own spacers out of dense foam, but any material will work. It's best to try and pick something that will not degrade over time. Plastic or aluminum would be best, I just went with the foam because I wired stuff up before I noticed the sensor and had it on-hand. If I remember correctly, it was roughly 0.500" thick. You want it to just clear the bolt heads so the tailgate doesn't hit when down.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been enough pushback from folks with the automatic tailgate option for PUTCO to offer one directly. I tried as best I could to send them details, dimensions, and pics...and no luck.

---------- Post added at 09:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:50 AM ----------

If you plug the harness into the trailer connector, it'll think a trailer is connected. But if you TAP into the wires, that's different.

A connection is a connection, any way you do it. The key is the power wire and sensing the load. All the other wires don't matter (e.g. reverse, turn, etc). The instructions for the PUTCO bar require cutting the red power wire on the PUTCO wiring and isolate it with the included shrink wrap. Then, you wire the proper end to the 12V of the trailer harness. In order to then get power, you wire a jumper under the dash between the 2 wires listed in the instructions. Note that this does make the 12V wire in the trailer harness live all the time, but that's no biggie.
 

lottp

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Would be great if someone made and sold a replacement bracket w/hardware. I assumed it was an open/close sensor, so interesting to see it's just for alignment while using the integrated step.

Till then, adding spacers to the plastic mounting pieces is easier than trying to modify the bracket and hardware.

Keep us posted on that thread with the final result.
 
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