Who wants to help an idiot with wiring?

So yeah. Rigid ditch lights were wired to a ch4x4 switch and I pulled them apart to wire in an illumination harness and I didn't pay attention to my old wiring setup. Not my proudest moment.

So the harness clips in to the cargo lights and runs to the bottom two wires on the switch, the ground and illumination. The switch lights up with rest of interior like it should. Here's where the fun starts.



So I have the power/ground and the red/black from my lights sorted. I know green goes to positive and top red in switch goes to lights. I have tried all the combos that make sense to me and none seem to work.

So, who wants to help an idiot with wiring?

 

I'm an idiot with wiring/electrical as well but maybe together, we can make some good guesses!

 

So the Green goes to the 12V power with a fuse.

Red next to that goes to the relay.

Red after that goes to the illumination.

Black to ground.

 

Like this?

 

I went more like this, so the light on the switch only comes on with the switch..Left the illumination alone.

 

I had found those but my problem is I'm only working with the top two wires (green/red power/equip) due to the harness used. So I'm struggling with the wiring of the lights (red/black) to the red equip wire as I know the green goes to power. Also assuming I don't need a ground now because the black is grounded into the cargo light harness?

 

Where's the relay.
Where are your switches getting power from?
Battery goes to a fused relay.
Switch and lights connect to relay.

 

The green stays with power and the red next to it goes to the equipment relay, next red should go to red in the harness and black to the black in the harness. If that doesn't work, then put the black to a real ground.

 

There was never a relay on the setup as it was a low draw being two small pods. Just a fuse on the positive battery line. Everything worked fine but the switch was constantly lit up so i bought a harness from caliraised that plugs into the cargo light and splits off to the switch. Black and red are run to there. It leaves me with the green for power and the red for lights from switch and the positive/ground for power and black/red from lights to connect up

 

Someone can pipe in where I'm off.

All black go together.
Red from lights go the switch and I don't know what you do with green....to truck acc for illumination?

You might have the wrong switch for what you're trying to do.
If you want to use that switch, you might have to jump some wires, for your use case but I don't know which ones.

 

So I'm probably not articulating this well because as I said, I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to 12v wiring.

So 3 and 4 are tied back in the harness to make the switch light up along with the rest of the lights on the interior. I'm certainly no expert but I'm pretty sure it is the proper harness designed for this specific usage.

It leaves me with wires 1 and 2 for the power and lights. I have the red to positive on battery, which should go to green or 1. I'm left with the black from ground and red/black from the lights themselves and I've tried red to 2 no lights.

I had wired this up like 3 years ago and lights worked fine but the switch was always illuminated so I bought this harness to fix that. As is the switch lights up as it should with truck lights I just can't figure out how I had the lights wired up before.

 

So there is a red from the battery and a black from ground? What is going to the lights?

How about:

Green (1) to the battery.
Red (2) to the positive for lights.
Red (3) to the illumination - pos harness.
Black (4) to ground, negative for the lights, and neg harness.

You should really look into using a relay too.

 

This is why I gave up on the illumination part. haha.
My switch light only comes on if the switch is on.

 

I have mild OCD, ha. If its meant to light up, I light them up. I just rewired my seat heaters and had to figure out how to dim the switches. Damn things have 6 wires, with 2 being "grounds." Had to split them up and figure out which was for dimming. I guessed correctly on the first try. Thanks Toyota for not doing dimming the normal way....

 

It sounds like you have the switch illumination hooked up correctly. In your picture the wires I circled are the leads to the lights right? If so, hook the green wire on the switch to the battery or wherever you're taking power from, then the red wire from switch to red wire on lights. The black wires from the lights then go to chassis ground.

The black wire on the switch just grounds the switch illumination, not your ditch lights.



Edit: And yeah, I think you really should be using a relay.

 

That's the missing piece.

 

OMG, I read everyone of these, sounds like an Abbott & Costello script.

 

2 reds to the red reds, green to the black and is there two switches? Wait wait wait. Let’s start over.

 

Thanks for the explanation, I am going to give this a shot. To add a relay, would it go on the hot/ground after the fuse or before? Does it matter? Is a generic 12v relay ok to use?