My BD S2 Reverse Light Kit Install

[Gerald]

That finished up the routing of the harness through the frame. The next thing we did was to make sure to locate the upfitter wires in the engine compartment. They were really tucked in and taped up. So they weren't easy to see or get out. I didn't want to pull very hard and the taping was to a plastic piece which prevented you from pulling the bundle of 6 wires out. So you had to undo the tape to get the wires out. Not a lot of room to get your hands/fingers in there. But again with some patience, we got them out.



Here are the wires after we managed to get them free. They have a pretty good rubber/vinyl coating on each wire end.

 

[Gerald]

So the harness was routed up into the engine compartment as seen in the below pic. You can see where the harness came out of the frame and then up into the engine compartment.

 

[Gerald]

The kit from 4x4TruckLEDs cam with an instruction page that describes the upfitter wires. Had the color of the wires, the upfitter switch number, and the amps available for that switch. I decided to use switch #6 which is a 5 amp circuit. Unfortunately, nowhere in the instructions or information did I see how many amps these S2 spots would use. I figured 5 amps would be sufficient considering that the lights are LEDs and there are only two pods being powered. But to be certain and safe that I had gotten the correct wire and that the 5 amp fuse was sufficient, we went ahead and temp connected the wires to make sure the S2s turned on. Success!! Next step is to make the final connection to the upfitter wire and attached the ground eyelet to the vehicle.

 

[Gerald]

If you recall from the pic of the provided large upfitter harness, one end had a crimp type connector for the upfitter wire. See pic below to see the connector. The other wire has the grounding eyelet.



So we stripped a little insulation from the #6 upfitter wire so that bare wire could go into the harness crimp connector. We tried using a small set of needle nose to crimp/crush the connector onto the bare switch #6 wire. It wouldn't crimp well. So I grabbed a pair of channel locks that close by and that didn't work well either. That connector was pretty tough to crimp. We I wasn't going to be defeated that easily, so I grabbed a pair of crimping pliers up high on the wall that a rarely use. Had to get the ladder out which is why I didn't use them initially. Just laziness to use the sets of pliers on hand instead of getting the ladder out to get the proper crimping pliers. That's when the first mistake happened! I had set myself from using the previous pliers and using all my strength to try and crimp the connector, that I ussed too much force on the connector. Not only did I crimp it, but I inadvertantly snipped all the way through the connector. Just cut in in half!

 

[northerner77]

Well, I just got the fish tape through using your method. Thank you! Pulling wire harness from back to front right now.

 

[Gerald]

But no biggie. I have a soldering iron and solder and some shrink insulation wrap. So i snipped the crimp connector off of the wire from the harness and striped a little more insulation from the upfitter wire. Placed some shrink wrap on the wire, twisted the wires together, and soldered them to give them best connection possible. Then got the heat gun out to shrink the wrap over the bare wires. Here is a pic of the final connection of the two wires.



You can see how I taped the upfitter harness to an existing harness to keep it in place. The grounding point was also a bit tricky. You can see two large black rounded nut heads, one of them already a grounding point for another harness. But those studs were too large for the provided eyelet on the grounding wire. So I used the smaller stud closest to the connection. For whatever reason, a nut would start on the stud just fine and then stop. It would not go all the way to the base of the stud. It was weird. So i ended up just putting a few washers on the stud and then was able to get the nut to firmly hold the grounding eyelet in place.

Then we put some tape on the unused 5 upfitter wires and tucked them back out of the way. To be used next year when I install some pods in the front bumper.

 

[JohnyPython]

Nice work so far. Thanks for posting this.

I’m looking at some lighting as well. I remember someone on FRF installed a fused connection block for the up fitter wiring. Looked great.

 

[Gerald]

Now to the S2 mounts onto the back bumper. This was a bit of a challenge. I ended up not directly following the instructions/recommendation. Because of the challenge and frustration, I forgot to take some pics of the mounting. So I'll try and describe some of the difficulties. The instructions stated to attached the bracket with the side tabs towards the top. See pic below of instructions.



I'll explain why as we go, but I decided to rotate the bracket 180 degress so that the side tabs were more towards the bottom. What's extremely difficult is that it is tough to get to the main bolt that holds the bracket to the bumper if the S2 has been installed on the bracket. And if you mount the bracket first, then you can't realy install one of the side bolts into the S2. See pic below which shows how cllose the edge of the bracket is to the side of the exhaust tip.



You can't really even get an allen wrench in there to fully tighten. So I found that rotating the bracket 180 degrees with the side tabs lower, allowed me to point the S2 light down the ground and just barely have enough access to the main bolts that holds the bracket to the bumper. So what I ended up doing was mounting the S2 into the bracket first and tightening the side bolts pretty snug. Not too tight since I needed to be able to rotate the S2 and point it to the ground. But made it to where it took a little force to point the S2 downward. Oh and it's easier to put the main bolt into the bracket because the washer is pretty big and tough to get in if you wait until after the S2 is mounted onto the bracket.

So then I rotated the S2 down towards the ground and mounted the main bolt into the bumper.. You really have to push the wire out of the way to get the torx bit into the bolthead, but it can be done. After tightening that main bolt good, I rotated the S2 to point to the rear. Then I tightened up the side bolt opposite the exhaust tip near the recovery hook. You can get to the bolt head with an "L" style small allen wrench and really tightened it up so it wouldn't rotate any more. The S2 seems to be staying firm and in place now. So I think it's tight enough. The S2 is slightly can't to the right, so I'll probaby have to adjust again. Thought I had it straight, but looking at this pic I can see it isn't quite level.

 

[Gerald]

Connecting the S2s to the long upfitter harness was very straightforward, essentially plug and play easy! The harness is awesome. You string it down the passenger side of the truck and it has branches for each S2 pod. Then it has a branch to go to the driver side taillight. Before I connected to the taillight, I wanted to see the S2s turn on. Started the truck and flipped aux switch #6 and a beautiful site to see the lights illuminate!!

 

[Gerald]

Taking the taillight off of the truck was a bit unnerving. The instructions were pretty good though. You lower the tailgate to access two screws that hold the taillight in place. But there are still two rubber pieces that go through holes towards the front of the taillight that you can't see. These little guys hold it pretty well. You start pulling on the tailight towards the rear, not the side, and it's supposed to give. We'll it's a little difficult to get a good grasp on the taillight and you really have to pull pretty hard. Once the little rubber pieces release from the holes, there is a popping sound and then the taillight is fully in your hands. After a few seconds of thinking that popping sound meant you just broke something you start tp apnick and think about how much your screw-up just cost you. But investigating the entire tailight showed no breakage of anything!! Woo Hoo!! Again, this was a very stressfull part of the process and there was no way I was going to remember to pull my phone out to take a picture of the process for getting the taillight out. So sorry for no pics of the removal.