Info on Dually Tailgate Light Bar???

[Blackdog]

About a month ago I went to my dealer to see if they could order me the light bar that comes on the tailgate of a dually. So we looked it up on their computer and it showed what we thought was the whole assembly, so the guy ordered it in for me so that we could see if it was the right piece. To no surprise it wasnt the whole thing. So now I'm curious if any of you guys would know where I could find these lights ?? I've checked every local junkyard for a tailgate off a dually still with the good assembly and I cannot find one anywhere. Any info at all would be appreciated. Thanks!!

 

[LMautone]

I called dealers all over U. S. several months ago. Whole assembly was discontinued and i can tell you that no dealer has any laying around that i know of. if i remember someone posted all the part #'s that make up the whole assembly but it got real expensive to buy them separetly.

 

[JHansen]

Here's the magic part #'s....

courtesy of my brother the Mopar parts manager. Part # 55054823 gets you the bar itself and 55054824 is the socket/harness assembly. Sorry I can't help you with the Mopar part # for the lights itself-I ordered LED ones from the local NAPA store as they are quite a bit brighter and draw way less current than stockers. I have the parts sitting in the back of my truck awaiting assembly-hopefully this weekend.



The only fly in the ointment is that the 2500's apparently don't have the plug in the rear wiring harness to plug the light bar into-I crawled around under my truck for about 15 minutes looking for it with no success. Finally PM'd Evan Beck as I saw he had a set-he confirmed that there is no plug. He spliced into the license plate light wiring on his truck to power it-and I plan to do the same... . thanks again for the info Evan I'd probably still be looking for the mystical plug



Hope this helps you out-if you have any more questions about the wiring try to scare up Evan on here-I'm just a sheep following his lead!



Jason

 

[Thomas]

When the kit was available it was p/n 82401355—just in case you feel like searching around.



Here is how the kit wiring tapped into the existing wiring on my 2500 (from the installation instructions):

Disconnect the left (drivers side) license lamp connector from the truck's existing wiring harness. Plug the matching connector on the jumper harness supplied in the kit into the truck's harness where the license lamp was connected. Connect the license lamp and the ID bar to the jumper harness.

The lamps used on the bar are Peterson Manufacturing Company 154 series.



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[JHansen]

Doesn't that just figure....

That kit sounded exactly like what I was looking for-bummer they dropped it Whaddya gonna do though? I'm going to pull the left license plate light right off the bumper so I can work on it out in the open. I plan to solder and shrink-tube a pair of wires into it to run to the light bar wiring. I couldn't find a set of connectors to plug into the light bar harness-and I haven't been able to get over to where my brother works to see if I can get them separately from Chrysler-so I bought a 2 pin male and female Weatherpac connector setup from NAPA along with the pins and seals to connect the 2 up. Hopefully it works as good in practice as it does in theory...



Jason

 

[Thomas]

Check the bottom of your tailgate. There should be a hole in the bottom of the the tailgate 7 inches to the right of center. The kit instructions had me drill a hole 7 inches to the right of center in the 1 inch groove that is 3 inches up from the bottom of the tailgate. The hole I drilled was eventually covered by the light bar. The wiring harness attached to the light bar went into the hole I drilled, out the existing hole in the bottom of the tailgate, and through a second existing hole above the center of the license plate.



I put a grommet in the second existing hole and put convoluted split loom on the wire exposed below the tailgate.



If you have to cut into a tail light wire or license plate light wire it should be quite easy to do the splice work under the truck. There is lots of room and wires should be easy to identify.

 

[Dkevdog]

Truck-Lite & Grote Lighting both manufacture light bars that fit nicely on our trucks. The trucklite model is black abs and uses incandescent lighting for around $16-$18 on line from distributors. The Grote Co. makes many more options, ranging from ABS to Stainless steel. They also have them in LED configurations as well. Try Truck Lite or for Grote (and others) Berubes.



Kev

 

[WOWZY]

I put the tailgate lights on mine about a year ago. I called every Mopar dealer around and the kit was discontinued. Two dealers did a search and the ones that said they had the kit, didn't have them anymore.



I got the local dealer to order the seperate parts including the lamps. He felt bad that the cost of the kit was about $32 and purchasing all the seperate pieces was gonna cost almost $90. So he sold them to me at his cost and I got them for around $50.



Installation was pretty easy. I installed a male and female stacon plug on the plate lamp wire so that if I removed the tailgate I can just unplug the wires. I couldn't find any black stainless screws so I painted the heads black before I did the install.



The 3 lamps have Hella molded on the back of them and are around $11 each from the Mopar dealership. A friend of mine needed some replacements for his trailer and a local truck shop had boxes of the Hella lamps. The shop owner told him to grab a couple of handfulls and he could have 'em for free. He gave me 6 replacements so I won't have to buy any for awhile. I wish that I'd known that before I got the lamps from the dealership!



Like usual Mopar tries to ream us with bloated prices!!

 

[Skibby]

light bar

blackdog,I ordered mine through my Chrysler/Dodge dealer ,it does not come as a kit,the plastic housing for the three lights,the three lights,and the harness all have to be ordered seperately.

 

[JHansen]

Thanks for the drilling info Thomas....

the harness that's in the kit looked a little short to run to the sides of the tailgate-guess I know why now... . . Was gonna run to town to look at a 3500 to see how it was routed-but like usual I never got around to it-glad this topic came up on here before I started hacking and cutting!



As usual the TDR comes through again-I have gotten way more than my money's worth out of this place since I subscribed. I don't know how anyone can complain about the cost of membership when you balance it against the incredible amount of knowledge on here!



Thanks again

Jason