just bought a ranch cap and need help wiring

I just bought a ranch echo fiberglass cap for cheap. My truck is white, but the cap is red. The mismatch color is a little weird, but does not bother me and I am too cheap to paint the cap.

The cap seems decent, but has a funky smell, possibly from the fiberglass? Also, after I drove the cap home, I realized that I need to wire the 3rd brake light. The cap came with the brake light and 2 wires wired to a connector. Does anyone have any experience with this stuff?

Picture of Truck with Cap



Picture of wire connector



Sorry if these questions seems stupid, but I don't know anything about these things. Thanks.

 

I tapped directly to the brake wire at the brake light. I'd keep the quick connectors though so the cap can be removed if needed. It's a simple wiring job, just a ground and a power wire.

 

Okay, thanks. I will give that a try

 

If you need me to check which wires I tapped into I can. I've got a 2007 but I'm sure the general wiring would be the same. I'm not sure if any of the wires are different with LED tail lights or not. A couple minutes with a test light will confirm that you have the correct wire for the brake light. The groud wire I just grounded to the bed.

 

I looked at the tail light today, and I think the middle light is the brake light (stepped on the brake and saw which one light up). That light has three wires going into it: green, green+red, and white+black. I don't have a test light,will probably go buy one, but do the wire colors follow a certain convention? Also, did you quick splice the wires together or how did you go about connecting the wires (was cutting the wires involved)? Sorry for all of the questions and thanks for the help Mike.

Tail Light


Tail Light Brake Light (I think)
One of those wires are green+red

 

One wire is probably the marker light, one for the brake and the other is the ground. I'd have to check mine to see if the wire colors are the same and determine which is which. I connected the power wire from the shell to the brake light power wire and the ground wire from the shell to a bolt behind the tail lights that grounded the wire to the bed. My shell third brake light was an LED so it didn't matter which was ground and which was hot.

You could quick splice but I'm pretty set against them. I cut the wires, soldered the connection and used heat shrink to protect the splice against the elements and corrosion. I would recommend solder and heat shrink over quick splices.

If your truck has the tow package, you could use the wires from the 7-pin connector. It might be easier to isolate the brake wire behind the 7 pin harness.

 

Thanks for the info. I have never soldered before so I will probably just quick splice them. Also I do not have the tow package.

 

If you quick splice them, tape them up really well so water can't work it's way in and corrode your wires.

It'll be one of the green wires, I'm not sure which is brake and which is marker light though. I'm pretty positive that the white is the ground wire.

 

Thanks for all the help Mike. I ended up just paying a truck shop to do it b/c the shop was cheap enough, came out to be the same price if I would do it myself. The brake lights in the tail light are the green+red wires on the 2012 tacoma for future reference.