Dome light wiring?

Feb 22, 2004 5 Replies

I have a 12 volt courtesy light that I pulled from an old ambulance that I want to use as a dome light, it takes a normal dome light bulb. What guage wire should I use to fish it to the fuse box? I was thinking 18 guage would be heavy enough. But, not sure.



Thanks.


Mark A. Stewart did pass the time by typing:

Depends on how much you expect it to pull. If you have an ammeter you could hook it up to the battery and find out for sure. Always use the next largest wire if your within 20% of the max rating. (safety margin)

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18 or 16 should be fine.

I would look for an unused connecter in the area of the clutch pedal. My CJ has a tap wire on it that is used to provide power to a dome light, I suspect your YJ has a similar tap. If so, then you have a ready-made circuit that will behave just like a car.

make sure you put it on a fuse. It's bound to get rained on.

If yours is the same as my `79 CJ-5 (a common GM headlight switch), that connector is switched to ground, not hot. He'll have to feed the dome light power, leave it ungrounded and run a wire from the ground side back to the connector.

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