How to Mount Marker Lights on a Trailer

Video Transcript

"In this step we're going to show you the proper procedure for mounting one of your marker lights. Your kit's going to come with two of them. One goes on the front here. The other goes on the front over there. You're going to repeat all these procedures for mounting the other side. What I have here in my hands is what you call a Bit Gauge. This will tell us the size drill bit we need to use in order to punch our hole in the frame for this mounting stud. Now, I know by reading the directions that it's a quarter inch. However if you didn't buy a kit or you're not sure, you can use a Bit Gauge. As you see, it just barely fits on there. That's the size drill bit you're going to use. I'm going to go ahead and take and drill that hole right now. Alright, there we go. I'm also going to take and drill another hole for the wire to poke through. I'm going to change my drill bits out. The drill bit that you use to drill your wire doesn't necessarily have to be any certain size, as long as it's significantly bigger than the wire itself. I'm going to go ahead and begin drilling that hole right now. You'll notice that as your drill bit begins to seriously bite into the metal it may slip if you have an automatic chucking drill like this. That's ok. Just keep at it, and you'll pump through. The holes that your wire goes through, I'm going to want you to take and very carefully try and take the burs off the inside. You're going to do that by gently wheeling your drill around. You can see the additional metal coming out there. What that'll do is take the sharpness off the edge of the holes that you just cut into the steel. That'll take and extend the life of electrical connection. I'm going to unscrew my retaining nut, and get the lock washer off there. I'm going to slide the wire through first. Just like so and pull that through and then line up my mounting nut. Just like so. I'm going to slip my lock washer on. Just like that, and slip my retaining nut on. You're going to want to use a twelve point because it gives you more fitting locations on the nut. A six point, you might not be able to get enough swing in order to reset your wrench and get another turn on it. I like to take and put my finger on the end of the nut so I know I'm getting it lined up every time. Alright and there we go. That's the proper way to mount the light. Um, what I'm going to do is demonstrate the way that these Scotch Locks are used. Now um, for my vehicle I would use a waterproof Butt Connector or similar three way splice. Something I can seal the weather out of, but these come with your kit and you paid for them. So I'm going to demonstrate the proper procedure of using one of these in case you don't have any other options. What you're going to want to do is, take and get a hold of your wiring and pull it down. Now I know from reading these schematics that we're going to want to use the Brown wire. We're going to take and splice into that Brown wire with our Scotch Lock. I need to take and separate these wires from each other so my Scotch Lock will work. You just need to use something sharp. I wouldn't recommend a razor blade. Um, a flat blade screwdriver or a wood drill bit will work just fine. All we need to do is get them to separate a little bit, so I can peel them apart. Alright, once you have the wire split, we're going to slip our Lock, now you'll see the Lock has two channels. One is a dead end channel that you can't see all the way through, and the outside one is a full through channel. The full through channel, of course is going to run all the way through. We're going to take and clip that onto the wire that we're going to parasite or splice into. Just like so. You can see we're starting through the channel on the outside and going through the channel on the outside as well. What you're going to do from here is take this Pigtail wire and you're going to slip it into the end that dead ends. Now the dead end is going to be on one side or the other. In this particular case I got it on there. It's going to dead end on this side. We're going to want to feed out wire through all the way this way, up. You're going to want to go into the end that's doesn't have the dead end ready to close. From there we're going to take our Terminal Pliers, you can also use Slip Joint Pliers to compress the splicing tab. Now the splicing tab is this piece of metal, the splicing tab is the piece of metal you see right here. You compress that and it cuts through the insulation and grips into the wiring. Just like so. You're going to want to give a tug on your wires and make sure that they're retained. You can see how that device has pushed all the way through. From there we're going to take and reinstall the locking device until it clicks. Just like that. That is the Scotch Lock connection right there. That is the proper way to mount your light and install that kind of connection."