I want to put lighting in my tool box, and in the bed. A lot of times I'm in both after dark. Anyone with ideas,expierences?
Thought about buying a under hood light like ones from gmdieseltech.com and using in toolbox. But what about the bed lights? I pull a fifth wheel, the cargo lights are pretty much worthless. Thanks ahead.

I have talked to a few people that have done something similar to this and have installed a switch in the truck and then run wires through the firewall and under the truck to the bed making all necessary power connections under the hood and then coming up through the bottom drain hole on one side if the bed and installing a light. You will need to make sure the wires are protected from water or you can run the wires between the bed and truck cab and drill a small hole if you like. Just what I have seen done. Good luck.

A friend of mine did this to his tool box on his Z71. He went to Wally World and bought a small light with a switch on it and ran the wire down the corner of the tool box then I think he went through the small hole in the corner of the bed up to the battery. Works slick. I have thought about doing it to mine as well.

William

a buddy of mine did the same thing as wbens. probably not the same guy tho. same idea however. and i too have bee thinking about doing it to mine.

I put the old style "under the hood light" (the metal kind) on my old '83 scottsdale trucks tool box. The box had the single lid and when ever you lifted the lid the light came on automaticaly. Worked great. I to want to mount some lights in the bed for when I get a tonneau cover I can see in there, but I will have to figure a way to mount them so that I can also trigger them on with my rear cargo light.
This switch has to have a seperate negative from the rest of the truck.

Thanks for the ideas, soon I will tackle this and let you all know what I came up with. I am an electrician so maybe that will help, heh?

rolloffhill just posted this thread: http://dieselplace.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30617

yea that's a bright one, thanks

Another option you might think about is a couple white LED light strips. I put a couple 6 LED strips under my hood and it lights up the engine real well at night. They were cheap, too-I think I paid less than 10 bucks a piece.

i put LED rope lights under the rails in my bed and love em. i brought the wires up from the frame rail, between the outter and inner metal in the bed and into the stake pocket area. there is a small opening under the rail that the wires will come out and be totally hidden without drilling any holes in the truck. all you would have to do is drill a hole into the toolbox from there.

I see The BAC directed you to my post. As far as inside the box, I have been thinking about getting a 12v porch light from a RV supplier (ie. camping world) and putting that inside. I already have the switched hot wire in my toolbox so I will probably tap on to that. The porch light has a switch on it, so no need for extra switches in the cab.

habanero,haneym Either of you have pics? Where did you find the LED strips/Rope lighting? I like both of your suggestions, thanks for the input.

A really sweet setup I've been thinking about when I put a Pro-Tech toolbox in my truck would be using a mercury switch to activate LED lights. This way there are no toggle switches to get left on, etc. It would make for a really clean install.

Comments?

sure, here are some pics of my setup. i really love it and it works perfectly for me. initially, the lights were real stiff and i only used 3 clips per side. with time and heat, the lights softened up a bit and began to sag as you can see in the pics. since i took those pics, i added a couple clips so i now have 5 per side and now the lights are totally hidden and dont sag down at all.

i bought them from cabelas, they are made for boats so they are totally sealed and weatherproof. best of all, theyre cheap! ($15 a piece, they are 6ft long) Cabelas Marine Rope Lighting (http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/vertical-item.jhtml?id=0022913016310a&navAction=jump&navCount=1&indexId=cat600053&podId=0022913&catalogCode=IF&parentId=cat600053&parentType=index&rid=&cmCat=MainCatcat21276&hasJS=true)

http://dieselplace.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=2712
http://dieselplace.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=2713
http://dieselplace.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=2714

I don't have any pics, but I got the LED strips at superbrightleds.com. They were the cheapest on the little LED light bars I could find.

Where did you guys get your hot from?

I have a 3 way switch, so I pull hot from 2 places - the cargo lamp circuit and the accessory wire in the towing harness.