How to Add Lights to Your Truck

For most of us adding lights to our trucks, is a way of customizing, creating a unique look, and being seen. Some only want the bare minimum, because with more lights comes higher maintenance. As for myself, I like lights 🙂

If you’re thinking of adding some lights to your truck you might be wondering: With so many different lights available, which lights should I buy for my truck? This is more preference than anything, depends on the truck. The LED lighting is a good choice if you plan on many oval lights or over a hundred lights in your light plan.

Of any light, I prefer grommet mounted lights because you can mount them anywhere you want, in-body, in-bracket, in-bumper, etc, and receive a slim mount with the rubber cushion for road vibration.

Standard grommet mounted lighting in two-inch and two and a half-inch draws around .3 amps per light so you can have a large light plan with these lights. But the oval ones draw around 2.1 amps (if I remember right) so you have to keep the numbers down.

The LED lighting is brighter, cooler, and draws less amperage. One drawback to LED is when running in the snow your lights will cover-up, with the old standard lighting the lights ran so warm that they melted the snow, and traffic coming up behind you would know you are there. But with that heat, bulb life is also short, all in all, I prefer the LED for rear lighting because of its brightness.

For the sides of the truck two-inch grommet mount works well, if you have a work truck or service unit the two and a half-inch light with reflective lenses works well. For the bumper both of the above and oval all work. Like I said, in the beginning, it’s all preference, chances are you know what you like from seeing other trucks and have ideas that will work for your truck. Try to keep your light spacing consistent throughout your light plan.

When wiring in your new lights I would split up your lights into 10 amp circuits for long component life. Use a power relay, switch, and circuit breakers in each light circuit. Keep the wiring secured tight and protected from rubbing on body panels, fuel tanks, and frames.