Bat Raptor
Member
I couldn't stand the stock white 3rd brakelight on my Black Raptor.. So I purchased the Recon smoked 3rd brakelight #264111BK to replace it.
There was a warning label that you could just plug and play because Recon cant reproduce the Ford female socket. I figured big deal.. some wireing T clamps would do the trick.. I even checked out a youtube video of a guy who wired one into a normal F-150. He had to splice 3 wires on the recon light into 3 wires in the stock harness.. the only problem he noted was that Recon got the colors of the wires wrong so he showed where they should be..
What I didn't expect was to see 7 wires in the stock assembly as opposed to the 3 in a normal F-150. The raptor has 3 wires going into a central harness that plugs into the led circuit board for the 3 red brake lights Alos DOT running lights on the Raptor and it also has 2 seprate sets of a chain wires going to two white light bulbs which are your cargo lights.
So I checked it out for a bit and figured I could do it without too much help. The first time I wired all three to the center harness
Black recon - White harness (might look tan)
Red recon - Red harness
White Recon - Black harness with white stripe
All seemed to look good and both red and white leds were getting power and working so I put it back together.. My mistake was that I wired them all to the central harness wires. It turns out that the black harness wire actually powers the red leds in low mode for the DOT running lights (because the Raptor is so wide). So when I put the truck in drive or closed the door, the white cargo lights on the Recon were still getting power. Well In AZ you cant have a white light to the rear while driving, So I knew I screwed something up.
It made sense that the original cargo lights had to have their own power and they had their own black wire so I spliced into that one separate from the harness and plugged the white recon wire into it.. SHAZAM!! works perfect now..
So.. here is the explanantion and what the wiring should be if you have a Raptor.
Harness white is the negative to harness - Connect to Recon Black Wire
Harness Red is positive to brake light - Connect to Recon Red Wire
Harness Black is the positive for DOT lights (do not connect unless you want cargo lights on all the time)
Cargo lights White chain wire is negative to cargo lights (do not connect)
Cargo lights Black chain wire is positicve to cargos lights - Connect to Recon White wire.
Overall it worked out well and even though the cargo lights aren't nearly as bright as the stock cargo bulbs, the new smoked black lense is much better looking on my truck than the original white one was.
Of note: I used press on T wire lamps for all my wiring and simply removed the bulbs and placed the original sockets and harness in tiny plastic bags and taped them up. Meaning I didn't cut any of the original wiring out. So if for some reason, I decide to get rid of the recon and go back to the OEM, all the original wires and parts are still there to put the white light back to original.
Hope this post helps anyone else thinking about doing his mod..
Bat Raptor
There was a warning label that you could just plug and play because Recon cant reproduce the Ford female socket. I figured big deal.. some wireing T clamps would do the trick.. I even checked out a youtube video of a guy who wired one into a normal F-150. He had to splice 3 wires on the recon light into 3 wires in the stock harness.. the only problem he noted was that Recon got the colors of the wires wrong so he showed where they should be..
What I didn't expect was to see 7 wires in the stock assembly as opposed to the 3 in a normal F-150. The raptor has 3 wires going into a central harness that plugs into the led circuit board for the 3 red brake lights Alos DOT running lights on the Raptor and it also has 2 seprate sets of a chain wires going to two white light bulbs which are your cargo lights.
So I checked it out for a bit and figured I could do it without too much help. The first time I wired all three to the center harness
Black recon - White harness (might look tan)
Red recon - Red harness
White Recon - Black harness with white stripe
All seemed to look good and both red and white leds were getting power and working so I put it back together.. My mistake was that I wired them all to the central harness wires. It turns out that the black harness wire actually powers the red leds in low mode for the DOT running lights (because the Raptor is so wide). So when I put the truck in drive or closed the door, the white cargo lights on the Recon were still getting power. Well In AZ you cant have a white light to the rear while driving, So I knew I screwed something up.
It made sense that the original cargo lights had to have their own power and they had their own black wire so I spliced into that one separate from the harness and plugged the white recon wire into it.. SHAZAM!! works perfect now..
So.. here is the explanantion and what the wiring should be if you have a Raptor.
Harness white is the negative to harness - Connect to Recon Black Wire
Harness Red is positive to brake light - Connect to Recon Red Wire
Harness Black is the positive for DOT lights (do not connect unless you want cargo lights on all the time)
Cargo lights White chain wire is negative to cargo lights (do not connect)
Cargo lights Black chain wire is positicve to cargos lights - Connect to Recon White wire.
Overall it worked out well and even though the cargo lights aren't nearly as bright as the stock cargo bulbs, the new smoked black lense is much better looking on my truck than the original white one was.
Of note: I used press on T wire lamps for all my wiring and simply removed the bulbs and placed the original sockets and harness in tiny plastic bags and taped them up. Meaning I didn't cut any of the original wiring out. So if for some reason, I decide to get rid of the recon and go back to the OEM, all the original wires and parts are still there to put the white light back to original.
Hope this post helps anyone else thinking about doing his mod..
Bat Raptor
