Wireing auxilary back-up lights

You can use the back up light wire like you want, but you should use it as a trigger to run a relay for the lights. Those back up lights draw allot more current then the two tiny bulbs chevy installed. You could still have all this "plug & play" through the trailer hitch with no problem. Or you could just use the chassis as a ground.

GMC Gremlin

Jimmy, Maybe you can use Xenon or Halogen lamps, which are much brighter for the power they use. This would be by far, the easiest fix. Google.com can probably find you a bazillion direct replacements for your old lamps. Try this, first: connect jumper cables firmly to the truck frame, and to the trailer frame. If the lights get brighter, then the grounds have gone bad. Just repair the ground-wire system; use heavier ground wiring, and/or clean the trailer-connectors and the grounding lugs that bolt to the frame of the truck and trailer frame. If these ideas do not work out, then take GMC Gremlin's good advice; use a relay. Almost any headlight relay would be all you need. A salvage yard is usually a cheap source, for parts like that. Cheers, Red

--

************************* Replies will bounce, unless you remove the letter A from my email address.

Jimmy wrote:

Hello Red,

The relay will work properly only if you have a good positive/hot voltage source to connect to the relay's "hot" terminal(s). You could run a fused heavy gauge wire from the positive terminal of the battery (fuse close to the battery) towards the rear of the truck where you can terminate it onto a small fuse block or directly to the relay. There will be a voltage drop from battery to rear because of the inherent resistance of copper wire but the thicker gauge will help -- the dimming of Xenon or halogen lamps is less noticeable than standard bulbs. Equally important is a good ground -- check for corrosion/rust where the ground wire goes to frame/chassis (the shorter the ground wire, the better). If no grounding screws are available, a self-tapping screw with external/star washers will work -- I prefer drilling/tapping with some silicone bulb grease on the threads. Good luck.

Franko

Have a pr of clear driving lites on the back of my flat bed chevy, nice and brite at nite. I just used the oem wiring to hook them up, been on it several yrs now no problems at all. Makes one hell of a pr of back-up lites.

Just finished the setup and here's what I have. I ran two hot wires from the trailer hitch back to the lights over the cab and then ran a seperate ground wire from each light the the chassis and all seems to be good. I think my original problem was a grounding issue. I'll have to check it later when its dark to see that they really are bright. I'm considering getting a couple of xenon bulbs to put in them to see what that looks like.