Cargo Area Light Mod

[4wheeljive]

Here are a couple of pics of the roof panel at the rear of the cargo area. As David said, you have to pull really hard to get the 4 red fasteners to release. The LED bolts I got were from Oznium (1 watt, cool white, no lens). Awesome quality!

Where David used spades, I used Anderson Powerpole connectors in places where I might want to disconnect everything in the future. I followed David's placement of the lights, centered 1.5" from the rear lip.

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Links:
https://www.oznium.com/led-bolt
https://powerwerx.com/anderson-powerpole-connectors-30amp-bonded

 

[4wheeljive]

Since I was going to have lights mounted both inside the cargo area and under/behind the liftgate, I decided to place my switches on the panel above the liftgate window. So I ran the power and ground wires up through a conduit that leads from (a) the passenger side of the header area above the rear of the cargo area to (b) the center of the top of the liftgate just inside the window. I then ran another wire back down to connect Switch 1 to the 4 interior LEDs.

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[4wheeljive]

I then ran two more sets of wires from the switch area above the liftgate window down the pillar to the left/driver's side of the window to the inside of the lower part of the liftgate. The second set of lights would be 4 LEDs mounted across the lower inside panel (so they would shine down and illuminate the area right behind the vehicle when the liftgate is open). The third set of lights would be two 3-watt LED bolts mounted to the bottom edge of the interior panel of the liftgate (so they would project horizontally behind the vehicle when the liftgate is open).

In the pic below, you can see this wiring, as well as the completed panel of interior LEDs.

You can also see the three switches mounted to the window trim panel sitting at the bottom of the pic.

I'll follow up soon with some pics of the final results!

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[dbbd1]

Great job!

I've been curious about how to remove the cargo doir interior panel. Any info that have would be appreciated (by me and others, I'm sure).

 

[Rocket Man]

I think your rigs will show up from space now; man those things are bright. Good job.

 

[4wheeljive]

Thanks.

I've been curious about how to remove the cargo doir interior panel. Any info that have would be appreciated (by me and others, I'm sure).

Removing the inner liftgate panel was a MAJOR pain. A lot more difficult than the rear header panel. There are at least a dozen of those red and black fasteners spread fairly evenly across the panel, and it was hard to find good places to grab and pull. And you have to pull really hard! I was convinced I was going to break something major. I thought I took a photo of the inside of the panel to show where all the clips are, but I guess I didn't. There were 2 or 4 fasteners near the top of the panel, just below the window; another 2 along each side; another 2 or 4 across the bottom; and another 4 or so spaced around the middle. All of them are oriented so you pull straight down (toward the ground) when the liftgate is raised.

There were also two silver fasteners several inches to either side of the latch area on the bottom edge of the door panel. These were pretty easy to pop out, by pulling horizontally (when the ligtgate is open) away from the bottom edge of the door. You should pop these out before pulling down on the panel to release all of the red/black fasteners.

Before removing the panel, you need to disconnect the open/close switch on the bottom edge of the door. There's a little rectangle cap you pop off that reveals a torx screw, that gives you access to the wire connector to the switch. I also popped off the little piece of molding that surrounds the latch in the center. I don't think it was necessary to remove this, but it made it a lot easier to look around inside and see where everything was.

I ended up breaking about 6 of the red/black fasteners. By searching images of hundreds of different panel fasteners, I was able to identify the part number (11547026) and buy some replacements on Amazon (http://a.co/9TF4dPY). With shipping, it was about $15 for a box of 10.

If you're going to remove the panel that surrounds the sides and top of the window, you should do that before removing the main lower panel. If not, then there's a part of the panel that surrounds the top and sides of the window that you need to release in order to completely remove the main lower panel. The bottom of the panel "legs" that run down the sides of the window wrap around the "horns" that come up from the top of the main panel. There are two little tabs on the top piece that sort of "pinch" and lock into the bottom piece. You want to spread these apart to release the tabs.

FYI, the panel that surrounds the window has 6-8 of the dreaded red/black fasteners. For each of those, you pull "in" (i.e., toward the window area) and not "away" (i.e., out from the plane of the door).

 

[4wheeljive]

Here's a pic that shows the four 1-watt lights across the panel than point down and the two 3-watt lights on the bottom edge that point aft. You can also see the bank of switches.

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[4wheeljive]

And here are some pics showing the lights "in action." I drove someplace almost pitch black and turned off all of the other lights in/on the car. All of the illumination is from the LEDs.

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It does look a little spaceship-like when you see all 10 lights at once, but that's a ground-level view. From most perspectives, the only LEDs you really see directly are the two that project out.

 

[dbbd1]

Wow! Looks great! Perfect for camping (but looks like you do some kind of SAR).

 

[4wheeljive]

I definitely had camping in mind when I did this But, yes, I am part of a SAR team, and we often do initial incident management work out of the backs of our POVs until our unit trucks and trailers arrive. I was getting really tired of having to hang little camping lanterns and magnetic LED strips all over the place!