Installing Better Bed Lights (Warning Picture Heavy)

[TacoStandCT]

This thread is to show how I wired my Better Bed Lights in my 2007 Access Cab. If you haven't seen the bed lights yet check them out HERE.

DISCLAIMER: This is simply an explanation of how I wired my truck, I do not take any responsibility for any damage or destruction that you may cause in trying to replicate these steps. Your experience may differ and may not be the same for all years and models. Use this purely as reference and proceed at your own risk.

PART 1 - Getting the wires from the cab brake light to the dash

Step 1 - Remove the light.
Remove the 2 screws from the cab brake light. They have a Torx T15 screw driver to do this. Firmly but gently peal the black bezel of the brake light away from the truck. The gasket has an adhesive on the light side as well as the truck side. Pulling the light off will most likely cause the gasket to rip but if you bought a Better Bed Light you don't have to worry because it comes with a new gasket. Once you get the light off (don't forget to unclip the brake wires) peal the old gasket off the truck and light bezel.

TADAH! Your truck should look something like this once you have pealed the old gasket off and disconnected the light.

Step 2 - Remove the ceiling molding on the driver side.
Open the driver side door and access cab door. Locate the two bolt cap covers on the plastic molding that wraps around the door latch. Gently pry them off. You can do this with your fingernails if they are long enough or by gently prying with a small flat edge, be careful not to mark up the plastic if you go the screw driver route!

Use a Torx T27 screw driver to remove the two bolts holding the molding on.

Once you remove the two bolts pull straight down firmly but carefully, the molding has a few retaining clips that hold it in in addition to 3 clips that hook around the weather stripping. Pull until the retaining clips let go but be careful of the 3 clips (see the red arrows) that hook onto the weather stripping. Work the molding free and pull it off.

TADAH! again... This is what the underside of the plastic molding looks like. Note the white retaining clip and 3 gray hook type clips.

Step 3 - Loosen the rear driver side seat belt pannel.
Locate the bolt cover over the seat belt and pry it off with either your fingernails or gently with a screw driver taking care not to make marks.

The cover stays attached revealing a 10mm bolt. Remove the 10mm bolt.

Pull straight away from the driver side wall, the retaining clips will pop out. Note there are 2 white retaining clips (red arrows) and 1 hook type clip that hooks onto the weather stripping. Be careful not to break the hook clip. You do not need to remove this entire panel just loosen it so you have enough space to access behind it like the picture below.

Step 4 - Remove the clothes hanger hooks.
Locate the two clothes hanger hooks.

Locate the little notch at the top

Stick a small flathead screwdriver in that notch and turn the hook a quarter turn counter-clockwise and gently pull it out.

Gently pull the headliner free in the back corner so you can access underneath it. This may take a little wiggling, but it isn't too hard if you are gentle and take your time. Notice the white ribs on the ceiling, remember those for later.... seriously remember them.

Did you remember the white ribs?:yay:Hooray!
​

Step 5 - Remove the door jam panels
Locate the door jam panel under the driver side door. Pull straight up carefully and firmly starting at the back and working your way forward. There are several clips holding it in that will pull free as you do this.

This is what the bottom of it looks like.

Locate the rear driver side door jam panel and pull straight up carefully and firmly but this time starting at the front.

Here is what the underside looks like

 

[TacoStandCT]

Step 6 - Finally wire you truck.

Use at least 18 gauge or smaller stranded wire made for automotive purposes. Below is a picture of the stuff that I used, I got it off Amazon and it seems to be decent quality, but any 18 gauge stranded automotive wire should do.

I put my wire inside this black corrugated wire loom to protect it from sharp edges. I started from the break light and fed both the wire and wire loom through the hole in the back of the brake light hole.

Feed the wire loom and wires UNDER the white ribs ( the ones I told you to remember) and down on the inside of the seat belt panel. Feed it all the way to the floor and out underneath the seatbelt panel to underneath the door jam panels.

You can feed it through the existing wire holders under the door jam panels all the way up and under the dash.

solder your light connectors onto the wires you installed (in my opinion solder is best but any wire connection method will do as long as it is solid). Make sure you tape it up or shrink wrap it all nice nice.

Part 7 - YOU DID IT:yes:
Now just reverse the steps to put it all back. Pay attention on the steps that have hook type clips that go behind the weather stripping to make sure they get back where they belong. I found that a long skinny screw driver helped me to poke them back into place. With a little patients its not too hard.


Part 2 will follow where I will explain how I wired the switch and power and all that good stuff. If are going to wire it your own way make sure you put a fuse in line with the +12V line so you don't melt your truck down. A 5A fuse should be fine for the lights provided.

 

[TacoStandCT]

DISCLAIMER: This is simply an explanation of how I wired my truck, I do not take any responsibility for any damage or destruction that you may cause in trying to replicate these steps. Your experience may differ and may not be the same for all years and models. Use this purely as reference and proceed at your own risk.

PART 2 - Wiring up your switch in the dash

I wired my lights up to a blank switch slot to the left side of the steering wheel using a Contura V switch from OTRATTW. The wiring diagram for the switch can be found here.

Step 1 - Preparing to Install the switch

Remove the change drawer holder. It comes out by firmly pulling up on it, the hinge will disconnect.

Next, find your blank slot and pop out the plastic blank. You can stick you hands up through the hole left by the change drawer to get behind the dash and push the blank out. If you want to put the switch in the upper set of switches it will be more difficult to get to. There are some other threads on this forum that go into it in more detail like this one.

TADAH!

To get the Contura V switch to fit you need to do some minor filing to the sides of the switch hole, you shouldn't have to file the top or bottom. Take your time and test the fit the switch often. It is far less scary than it seems. This thread describes this same process in more detail. Stop worrying about damaging your truck and get it done!

Step 2 - Remove the kick panel

I have a 6 speed manual so your setup might differ slightly if you have an automatic. Remove the foot rest by pulling straight out firmly. There are two clips that hold it in place.

Untwist this plastic nut that is holding the back of the kick panel in and then pull the kick panel straight towards the rear of the truck. There are two clips holding the rear most face of the kick panel.

Once you get it off you can see the two clips.

This is the back of the kick panel, this is what attaches to the clips.

Step 3 - WIRES!

Take the positive (Red) and Negative (Black) wires from the lights and continue to route them under the door jam and into the mess of wires behind the kick panel. The ground wire will be attached to a factory ground location in this mess of wires. Route the positive wire up behind the dash to your switch location.

Next we need to get a new positive wire from the switch to the battery. I fished this new wire starting in the cab. There is a grommet where all the factory wires go through the fire wall in the front upper left corner behind the kick panel. In this grommet I had a second small hole that wasn't being used, so I fished the wire through. It was blocked off at the end so I simply had to make a small cut from the engine bay.

The below pictures points to the grommet location.

Close up of the grommet and hole.

The hole I chose to go through was closed off with some rubber, so I cut the tip off and the wire easily came through.

Close up of the wire coming into the engine bay.

Route the wire to the battery and prepare to connect it to the battery. Make sure to use an inline fuse so you don't accidentally melt your truck to the ground. A 5 amp fuse should be sufficient. DON'T CONNECT THE LEAD TO THE BATTERY UNTIL YOU HAVE COMPLETED WIRING EVERYTHING ELSE.

Step 52 - Connecting the ground wires

You need to connect the ground wire from the light anywhere to the chassis (any metal part of the truck body). I chose to use a factory ground location. My switch needed a ground so that the lights in the switch operated correctly. This means I needed two ground wires. If your switch doesn't have lights you don't need the second ground. I routed my second ground from the switch location down to the mess of wires behind the kick panel. I attached the light ground and switch ground together with a screw mount connector and attached it to the factory ground.

Pointing to the location of the factory ground.

Here you can see my two ground wires coming into the yellow connector. I had to unscrew the bolt to attach the connector and then tighten it all up again.

I wanted the words on my switch to light up with the rest of the dash lights. Behind the switch blank I took out there is an unused connector for some feature my truck doesn't have. I stole the dimmer wires from this switch (see the blue arrow pointing to the cut green wires) . Fun Fact: The Tacoma has a variable ground dimmer circuit meaning that the ground wire is what changes rather than the positive wire. The Green with white stripe will go to pin 7 and solid green will go to pin 6 on my specific switch.

Using this switch wiring diagram you can see below that pin 8 is the second ground I installed for the switch lights, pin 2 is the wire from the battery, and pin 3 is the positive wire from the light.

Green with white stripe from the dimmer circuit goes to pin 7 and solid green from the dimmer circuit goes to pin 6.

Push the switch in its new home, hook up the new positive wire to your battery AND YOU ARE DONE!

Grab yourself a beer and enjoy your lights.:cheers: