Adding new internal tailgate lights - Tailgate wiring tips?

[Gigantor]

I've replaced my battered tailgate card with a nice new home-made one, and while I was at it I thought I'd add some lights to come on when the boot is open, to light up me food when I'm cooking with the gas stove at night.

The pic makes it look grubby for some reason but I'm quite pleased with it:


IMAG0325 by Mighty Davros, on Flickr

Anyway, I need to run a live cable from the existing rear internal cabin light across the ceiling and down with the loom into the tailgate itself. I spent half the afternoon unsuccessfully trying to feed the wire up / down the inside of the tailgate to no avail - has anyone got any tips for getting a new wire down the inside of the tailgate without removing the existing loom?


Cheers,

Dave

[Northern Bongolow]

maybe go to a scrappies and get the door/boot harness protector rubber and make your own loom run like the standard one on a bongo, there isnt much room to add more wires in the bongo tailgate one as you have found out .

[g8dhe]

It is possible I've passed two extra cables into the tailgate! Start by removing the rubber gaiter from the door and chassis ends, exposing the holes and simply pass the wires down the offside channel beside the rear window, until you can reach them. Use a long thin flat bladed screwdriver to carefully work thru the rubber gaiter from the chassis end then tape the wires to the end and carefully pull it back thru the gaiter with wires. Finally pass the wires into the chassis and thru to the location you need, best to follow existing looms for this! Then push the rubber gaiter ends back into the chassis and tailgate and ensure you have a good seal !!!

[briwy]

Another tip to get wires into tricky places and thought grommets etc is to push a piece of small plastic tube through. This is a lot stiffer than the wire which will usually bend and kink. Then push the wire through the tube, pull the tube out, all done.

[Jezza]

there's also a grommet halfway down the pillar - which I removed and managed to get a long wire down that far from the top, and then got a shorter wire up from the bottom ( you need heavy duty tweezers to grab the wires) - soldered them together and then pulled the longer wire down to form a singel run. I had no luck getting a wire all the way through using any other method

[daveblueozzie]

I used the wire that you hang curtains up with ,a type of long spring covered in plastic with a hook at the end (take the hook off), stiff enough not to kink ,but bendy enough to go around any hidden internal fittings.
Once through tape your wire to the end and pull back through carefully.

[Simon Jones]

Don't forget to put the net curtains back up before the missus notices

[Gigantor]

thanks for the tips guys - didn't have curtain wire but found a reel of some garden wire in the shed and managed to feed that through. Taped my cable to the end and pulled back through - winner!

Thanks for the screwdriver tip too - got through the rubber thingy no problem


Can't really see them in their proper glory but the lights come on when the boot's open and turn off when it's shut


IMAG0336 by Mighty Davros, on Flickr

[Bogmonster40]

ooh that looks very nice - though I would think i was in the fridge "AGAIN"

You people on here are so damn clever, I am so jealous.

[tonnee]

I did the same thing with my tailgate door card, covered it in Acoustic Carpet, I like the idea of adding the lights now though too