Topper Wiring - Advice

Howdy, I know there’s plenty of threads and videos on wiring a camper top but I’m having a little trouble connecting the dots (first truck, I’m learning.) Basically I want to wire a harness from my 3rd brake and dome light and I need some confirmation / advice on my setup.

I’m planning to wire brake and dome ground blacks together and to ground on the 4 pin, white to white on the 4 pin trailer harness. Red brake to green harness, red dome to yellow harness. So far so good? This is all from videos I have watched. If I'm wrong, holler.

My next steps are a little murky. I have a trailer harness on the underside of my bed. It looks old and corroded, I bought this truck used so no idea if it worked. I would imagine if I poke some leads from my multimeter in there I should get some read but I’m drawing zero. What would be your next step here? Follow back, check connections? Replace 4 pin?

Finally, I gotta get from the 4 pin under the bed up into the bed. Was planning on buying 4 pin extension, cutting off one end, fishing wires through tail housing and into bed and re-wiring so I have an easy access quick connect for the 4 pin coming from 3rd brake/dome. Make sense?

Better ways to do any of this, overall advice appreciated. I'm new go easy. Thanks y’all.

Dome and 3rd

Crusty 4 Pin from under bed

Need to go from 4pin dangling up through

 

Most topper wiring for brake and dome use the connections in the taillights. There is one guy making plug and play for 2nd and 3rd gens. Might have a 1st gen or be able to wire it up. Made that job super easy. You can also tap into the lights directly. That is how my toper was setup. For the Dome likely similar but cant recall. I was running a battery-operated version in my topper.

 

Yeah I was originally going to tap into the brake light harness and go that route but then I noticed I already had a 4pin trailer harness underneath my bed. I can’t seem to get any reading on my multimeter through it though so I’m wondering if I just leave that for dead and tap the lights like many others have done or if I should get another 4pin to replace the corroded one I have now. Also I found that thread from the dude making the plug and plays and asked him about 1st gen version, maybe that will work out. Thanks.

 

nice as long as he has the plugs he should. may get lucky and it's similar to existing. But if you in a hurry id go with the tail lights. that's the go-to for topper installs at a dealer. T tap, or similar and good to go.

 

It was probably overkill, but I bought a plug and play trailer harness and switched around the pinouts so that it serves as a canopy harness. I didn’t want to cut into my oem wiring. I know that most people do with no issues but I figured that it would be nice to keep it intact as much as possible. It also makes the canopy plug n play if I ever choose to sell it. If I find the pictures i took I’ll post them here for you.

 

Nice. The plugs the one guys makes for the lights is similar. For the ones folks tap they usually add a plug and play connector so you can remove. I’m in the priciest of trying to make everything for plug and play so it can be removed.

 

also try to tap into the wiring before the tail light housing connector, that way if you ever need to remove the tail light you won't have to re-wire

for my ARE LED 3rd I just used wire taps and ran a 22 awg connector I bought online, makes disconnecting easy when I remove the cap

if you want to use the trailer harness then buy a connector kit (male/female plugs) and use the wire to cut your existing corroded connector and use the new one.

then if you have enough wire (or get a couple feet of it) and solder/shrink tube when you wire the new connector in to run up to the cap.

unfortunately if you want an always "hot" light you will need to run a length from the battery or separate fuse box to the dome. otherwise you will need to have your running lights on to use it :/

 

Thanks @frizzman — that was a helpful reply. For the dome, is there a way to tap into the current map lights wiring or is there a spare fuse that could be utilized for that? I’d rather tie into a fuse than just go direct to battery I think?

 

I used a trailer harness plug for easy quick disconnect and reconnect if you remove the topper. I bought a four pin one, even though only three wires were needed. I just cut one of the wires off the plug.

As Frizz said, tap into the wire bundle before the tail light.

Here's a picture of what I did:

1. is the where I tapped into the factory wire that powers the brake light. It’s in that wire loom bundle.

2. is the ground wire that I connected to the bumper bracket.

3. the wire just left of the number is the power lead I ran from my (+) battery terminal. This is so the dome light can be constant hot.

4. is all three new wires (truck side) that I ran. I bundled them together, taped them together then ran them up into the bed and connected them to the trailer plug.

5. is where I ran the three new wires up into the bed.

I labeled each red wire (only color I had) so that I could keep track of what was what when I connected it to the trailer plug.

 

can't see the first pic you are referencing

but yeah, I think the 4-wire is like 14 awg and truck wiring is about 18ish? so you will have a little difference.

@dinosaurjr just run a length directly from the + terminal ring with an add-a-fuse and call it a day

I want to run a separate fuse block in the rear later on I just have to make myself do it. As for an empty fuse, I don't think there is one that is wired, you would have to open the fuse box and add the wires in and then run them back

 

Son of a... you don't see the picture with my drawn in reference numbers?

 

nope, just an IMG tag :/

 

I suck at interneting.

How about now? (above post)

 

Nope.

 

I see both pix, in post #9 above.

 

yep, I can see them now

 

You can buy a harness that plugs directly into the tail light OEM from Toyota. I picked mine up yesterday I can get a picture of it for ya. It's plug and play.

Here's the part # PTS053505DWH and it's $14.

 

ooo, interested in the pic. this sounds awesome

 

Where dafuq was this when I was wiring my toppers?

 

So I feel like I've been deceived a little bit. The sales guy told me it plugs into the tail light harness. It looks like it's just a universal harness with a fuse block, those cheap wire splice connectors. But I mean, it IS OEM Toyota....