VLEDS Plug-and-Play Bed Light Kit

Received mine in mail today. Very nice setup and packaging. Now need to install when off work..

 

Got mine as well. Agreed, very nice packaging (as usual per VLEDS). Very Apple-esque. Lots of parts but I’m sure it’ll go together easy enough. Just need time and some daylight at this point.

 

I'm excited to see some in the wild! We just finished our first draft of the install instructions here. I'll put them on the front page as well. I'm sure there will be several videos to act as an aid in the future but that won't help you out much right now. Feel free to share some feedback; we intend to update the instructions as we get more users as usual.

 

Thanks, I found a PDF off of one of the QR code cards in the kit. Seems pretty simple. I’ll probably install mine Saturday, so I’ll try to take some photos. If I get home early enough one of the days this week then I’ll do it then but that’s unlikely. Definitely excited to get it installed.

Also updated my post with some unboxing photos.

Still interested to see if you guys can some up with a good pin switch to use on the hood for underhood lights!

 

I made some progress on the install today, but ran into a small issue fishing the wires to the bed as daylight ran out. If you have a Bakflip tonneau or any kind of tonneau with rails that obstruct the top of the bed you won't be installing this kit without modifications.

With the Bakflip X4s in my case the driver side hole in the taillight cubby is visible, but it's not large enough with the tonneau rails in the way to feed the wires through or even the included white fish wire. The passenger side isn't accessible at all, which means the entire tonneau and the Bakflip x4s rails will need to removed tomorrow to finish the install. I might be drilling a small hole on each side.

Some other observations,

1. The entire harness (section that runs along the frame) could be shortened at least a foot maybe a foot and a half.

2. An electrician's fish tape reel was much more helpful than the white wire for feeding the harness up over the brake lines and along the frame. (step 8)

3. I spent way too much time trying to feed the y harness the runs along the bumper and to the passenger side tail light into the included wire loom. Basically. forced it into the loom about an inch at a time and used a small flat blade screwdriver to peel the loom over the harness. There has to be a better solution; my finger tips are numb. I thought about tesa tape, but I know it's not weatherproof.

4. I did have to remove the front mud flap and splash guard to feed the red wire up to the battery. If the fuse wasn't pre-attached it would have been much easier to feed the red wire through the same grommet as the purple/blue wires and then feed the red wire directly through the firewall to the positive battery terminal.


Question @kmorgan3 ... Where does this red/black wire illumination plug connect? (step 17/18) I didn't see anything in the instructions explaining that.



Hoping to wrap this up tomorrow morning. Then I can finish zip tying the entire harness.

Only other install picture I've taken so far.

Take your time feeding those purple and blue wires through the grommet. I used a box cutter to slice and a small flat screwdriver to hold the hole in the grommet open, so the connectors didn't break.



edit: You might want to wrap those purple and blue wires with some additional tape to protect them before feeding the harness along the length of the vehicle.

 

Good input. The plug you asked Kyle about is for switch illumination because he sells kits for people to get dash illumination for their switches and it plugs in there. So for people to continue using those and also get the VLEDS kit, he has made it into one included connector. So if you aren’t using a switch illumination harness off of the cargo switch currently, then you can tape/zip tie that off.

I have a Bakflip F1. Ugh.

 

Looks like good progress!

1. The harness is long on purpose because it fits the tundra which comes with a significantly longer bed option and longer cab, so the overall length is very long for a Tacoma.

2. I’ll make a note in the instructions that if you have a reel to use one. @daveeasa and I just used a piece of 10 awg but I can see how a fish reel would be nice.

3. The loom is optional for a reason . They sell looming tools on Amazon if you want to make it super easy.

4. Yes you will want to remove the splash guard; you can see it off in the picture. I think that was mentioned in the instructions but the team might have removed my note in the final edit. I’ll have them add it back in if it’s not there.

- Yes you will want to tape those pin terminals. I’ll put a note in there. They’re really sensitive. Also if it’s cold as hell that grommet can be a pain to cut. We spent a good minute or two trying to make a neat little puncture.

- Good to know on the backflip. Do you have a picture of how the rails attach? We’ve installed the kit onto 2 trucks with canopies and all we’ve needed to do was loosen the clamps a bit as the wire slides between the rail cap and the metal rail cap support. Not familiar with how the backflip mounts up to the truck. I assume it’s a special mount.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

 

Oh and yes the red and black wires are for switch illumination for if you have one of my switch harnesses already. We’re working on the product page to sell the extra connector you’d need to illuminate switches if you don’t have the full harness already.

 

Only pictures I have of the Bakflip rails are on page 2. Bakflip includes rails that bolt to the factory location and the oem rails attach and hang down from those.

I'm going to try removing the roll up section of the x4s (4 clamps and the whole top lifts off) and loosening the back bolts on the rails by the tailgate. I might be able to get the harness snaked through without removing the entire thing.

The mud flap removal was mentioned in the instructions as optional. (step 9)

 

My old school backflip on the '05 just mounts to the rails and blocks their use. I'm guessing newer ones allow you to actually use the rails which sounds nice.

I think my fender liner is flappy now, I need to get a new push plug thingy.

 

I'm back at it again this morning with more daylight and I can see the problem now. The instructions say to feed the bed harness wire through the hole above the relay in the tail light housing and into the bed. Yeah, well...

Even with the Bakflip rails removed that opening at the top of the bed is way too small to feed the harness through. Somehow we're supposed to feed the wire through that top hole in the tail light housing and then make a 180 degree curve with that wire and fish it into the bed opening.

There's no access to even get tools, fingers, hands, ect in there to make that happen. I ended up having to pry and bend the side of the bed to feed the fish wire through.

However, after doing that I can see the hole in the inside of the tail light housing isn't large enough to feed the harness and fish wire at the same time.

I don't recommend this kit at all and I'm disappointed considering I've been very happy with all the other VLED's kits I've installed.

Any advice before I rip the whole thing out and send it back?

 

I mean it was not 5 minutes but I did this with mine while my Leer was on. I used solid core 18 gauge then a thin feeder string then the WP connector. Definitely the most challenging part. Not sure how to improve though. Other than drilling and using a gasket. Which is an option. People don’t love drilling.

I don’t understand not liking the kit for the difficulty of install, Toyota made the truck, you can put the relay anywhere you want, the question is how to get to the bed and the crack at the rail is the only no drill option I know of. Used it for superpacific cable feeds in the past too.

 

Like Dave said it took some time to fish the wire to avoid drilling, but is doable and probably the most time consuming part of the install if you really want to keep it clean. You could always drill a hole and install a grommet — probably preferred if you have a topper blocking the rail caps. That would be a 5 min solution.

Here's the solution Dave was talking about. First run the solid core wire as you have and get it though the hole and then you can tape a piece of paracord or other thin material that is a smaller diameter than the connector and pull it through. Then attach your WP connector to the paracord and pull with that:


Very common when running electrical to use a rigid fish tape first and then use a flexible pull tape (mule tape; basically paracord) to do the final pull.

 

When fishing the solid core I used a finger on the hole so I could apply back pressure and know when I had it centered. Then push from the one side and pinch w the other as it feeds.

Also my preferred tape for fishing is poly seaming tape. Tears by hand and has a nice slick surface on the back without any residue. Home Depot has it in the painting aisle with the blue and orange tapes.

 

The one that I helped install was on a truck with a tonneau cover. The cover definitely added a little time, but once we got it loose, we made it through ok. It was tight, yes, but doable. Looking back at my pics, our routes may have been different. Not sure what difference that would have made if any?

And for split loom, these things can save some aggravation for sure

 

Apologies for my lack of patience and short last post. It's installed and working as it should.

I ended up feeding the harness through the hole in the tail light housing by itself and was able to grab it with needle nose pliers on the bed side and pull it through. Appears I've fished the harness under the metal piece and not between it and the top bed rail as shown with the white wire in my last post.

That said, I'm going to leave it for now and run the bed weather stripping later to hide the bed wires. I'll try re-routing the harness later.

 

It looks like there is an oblong hole at the top of the bed wall where you can go from the inside of the bed into the fenderwell. My guess is you hit that perfectly on your try, whereas MGM ended up fishing it between the fiberglass bed wall and metal bed frame.

That's just my guess, but when I looked up under the rail from inside my bed, that is about what I saw.

 

That may have been it? I should also note that I did this while recovering from my first surgery, so pain pills may have been involved . But it took us a little over an hour if I recall?

 

Yeah that’s probably the issue. The rail cap is a 2 piece assembly. If you run it right your wire should come out between the rail cap and the metal bracket, not underneath the metal. I think the metal is glued down or something whereas the plastic piece is barely adhered with some foam tape.

 

Confirmed what I thought from earlier - you have to make sure you’re trying to enter the bed in the right spot. Just requires putting a slight bend in the fishing wire and then wiggling it around to get it through the bed entrance.

Took about 20 seconds to fish mine.