Well i finally bought a cap used and dont know how to wire the third brake light. Its only 2 wires but i dont know where to wire it into, can i wire it into my trailer hitch wires if so which ones do I use?

 

can probably just tap into your tail lights, maybe put some quick disconnects for making removal easier in the future...

 

Thats a good idea about the disconnects, i"ll try to tap into the tail lights. I already have a line of fire so i was wondering if i could tap into that.

 

dont tap the taillights unless you want the 3rd brake like to flash when your turn light is on....


On my sport trac I actually have a CML (center mount light) wiring thats just capped off and I spliced into that and used a quick disconnect as well, so I can remove the topper


I would suggest tapping into the trailer harness, your new 3rd brake light is probably LEDs so it wouldnt draw much more then your Line of Fire



cant find a pic of mine, but heres something similar in a 3wire

 

Well i couldn't get it to work so i just took it off for now. I'll get another light and see if I can get that to work this time im going with leds.

 

The brake lights are also the turn signals in the Ranger trailer plug harness. So you also can't tap the trailer harness for the Center High Mount Stop Light - it would flash.

Your 2003 has a round 8-pin connector toward the end of the driver side frame rail. Some Rangers have the wiring there for brake lights only even though they don't use it (probably there for the Mazda variant that has separate amber turn signals). My 03 has 8 wires on one side but only 5 on the other going out to the tails. There's a good chance that yours does too.

Go to the front side of the connector. If you have 8 wires there, then look for the solid light green. That LG would work for the hot for the CHMSL on the cap. The other wire at the cap CHMSL needs to go to chassis ground or to the black wire in the same 8-pin connector.

If you cant find the light green at that connector, you always have the option of running a new hot wire from the dark green of the truck's CHMSL instead.

The color codes in the cap wiring probably won't match your truck. If you need more info on those, try the cap manufacturer's website.

 

Thanks Bob I'll look at it tomorrow. With your info I should be able to get this wired up correctly.

 

ScottG,
where exactly is the location of the CML wire? I was under the truck last night and digging around and couldn't find...please let me know.
Thanks!
Nick

 

The wire to the Center High Mount Stop Lamp on the back of the Ranger cab usually runs through the interior but the routing depends on the year.