A.R.E. Z series wiring, 3rd Gen

Well there are lots of good threads on shell wiring here on the forum but I was able to find some details for the 3rd gen but not specifically. Though I am not fully finished with this installation as of yet as I am waiting for parts to come in I figured I would share on what has been done so that it may assist others for their potential installation.

I did search online looking for A.R.E. wiring information and their really isn't much information on it, there are some You-tube videos on this but none if dealt with all the connections that I would need to work with on this shell as it also comes with a wired light for inside and a powered rear glass lock.

So what I brought home.

 

So go the shell back from paint on Friday and brought it home, got the additional clamps set up on it and then proceeded to start working on the wiring.


So I removed the drivers side tail light and determined which wire was feeding the brakes, this is the connector that feeds your brake lights to the rear.




I went and placed a piece of wood wedged against the seat so I could make sure, as you tell from the meter, 12v, this the blue wire in this setup. I would guess that this would hold true for all current 3rd gens.





You can see the blue wire here in this pic.

 

Nice! Did you just tap into that? Did you use a quick disconnect?

side question: how much was the cost for the respray on the shell?

 

Well I had a wiring harness left over from what I think was from my front light bar so I utilized that along with another wire to get the 5 wires that would be needed for this installation.



The previous owner did keep the portion of the connector to the shell so that gave me an easy way to connect all this back together.

The blue wire is for your brake light
Red is for aux power and or interior light
Black, is your ground
Green is your 1 of the two for the lock
Brown is your 2nd wire for the lock, still waiting on these parts, will update this later.

So I wanted this to be as clean as I could make it and I had lots of wiring pieces so I decided to drill the bed and use a grommet to get the wiring through the bed of the truck.



Grommet installed, hard to see but you get the idea.



Why I had the twilight off I then decided to identify a good ground while I was there, again some scrap connections from something and pulled the bolt from the bed stiffener and cleaned the paint off and installed a good ground at this location.

 

Yes will show that in a moment when I post it, cost $460 to have the paint done.

 

So as I had mentioned prior the basic harness only had four wires, but I needed five, I pulled the cover off the harness and ran the 5th wire then put the cover back over the wires and inserted into the grommet into the tail light area. Utilized crimp connectors that are also heat shrink ones and made up my harness to go the shell, see pic.



I didn't take a pic of when I tapped the blue wire but I basically had a t-type splice connector, allows you to tap the wire and plug into it so that you can connect your wire to it, nice little connectors especially in this type installation.



You can see in the previous pic and also this one the harness coming from the truck bed.

 

So the light in the top of the shell the wires were chewed up or damaged by something so I had to clean them up.

 

Got all the interior of the shell work and added wire loom, dressed it into place and now I wait for the tailgate lock so I can install it. This is why I mentioned that I not sure on the glass lock yet, once that arrives I will be able to lock both my tailgate and rear glass with the truck remote. I will most likely run a separate power line to the rear while I am at it for some additional accessories in the bed of the truck.

 

@neatoneto did you get the answer you were wanting?

 

Looking to do the same on mine. Need to add a pop n lock for the tailgate first so I can add one to the shell and tap into it

 

Oh, guess I should show how it looks on the truck now since the shell matches

 

I purchased the one from @KTJO 4x4 as she supplies a quick connect harness and the wire for the locks setup, got it off eBay but you can see stuff here in the 3rd gen section for sale as well.