Wiring in third brake light for camper shell

Recently bought a truck topper for my 99 Tacoma, it wasn't in the best shape but I'm slowly fixing it up and I come to the part of wiring in a third brake light. I really don't want to tap into existing wiring on the truck, in the case that I mess up plus I want the ability to be able to completely remove everything if need be. I'm going to buy a '

$47 Hopkins 43315 Plug-In Simple Vehicle Wiring Kit

Hopkins 43315 Wiring Kit' and splice into that but I need to know from someone who's done it this way what wire I need to tap into for the brake light. I can't find any wiring diagram for it on the internet.

 

I just hooked up my camper shell brake light. Not what you're looking for, but I ran the wires into the back of the driver side rear light and used T Tap Connectors to tap into the brake light line and the ground. Extremely easy and clean this way. I definitely suggest it. Cleaner and cheaper than the route you're going. Heres a picture of the connection with the brake light before adding the ground T Tap. You can connect the ground anywhere but for whatever reason I wasn't getting a solid connection with the body of the truck so I tapped into the ground on that light. Works wonderfully.

 

Thank you, I'm more than likely still going to go with the connector because in the event I need to tow a trailer it's a good idea to have the harness already hooked up. You gave me an idea tho I'll trace the wire from there to the wires in the harness

 

For sure. I ended up connecting it this way because I couldn't figure out the issue with my trailer light connector, was going to splice from that. Good luck!

 

A simple multi meter will let you find the brake light wire easy

A helper can hold the brake pedal or the pedal can be wedged.

On the 2000 Tacoma the brake light wire Is Green/White stripe yours might be the same or not.

 

my suggestion, and this is from replacing a few of the trailer harnesses "when" they go bad (not "if"). you will keep having to re-tap if you use the trailer harness wires, or the "tail-light" wires. use the main wires before the plug and you can easily splice in a connector for the 3rd on the shell/topper/camper for disconnect when you want to remove. I used something like this



I believe green w/ red stripe is brake and ground is always white w/ bk stripe

 

I ended up going with the harness method and it worked like a charm. It seems like a good quality harness but if it does go bad I'll end up having to splice the main wires. I just didn't want to cut into the original harness wires in the case that I may have accidentally messed something up and if I wanted to remove everything I could and none of the original wires would be spliced. In the long run this was more convenient for me. Thank you all for your input and personal experiences though I appreciate the help and insight.

 

Also incase anyone comes across this thread looking for the same answers I was, on this harness the red wire that goes to the module is the brake wire.

 

I like this, did you include a connector so you can easily connect/disconnect the wiring if you remove the shell?

 

Yup I used one of these guys. No idea what type of connector it is called but just grabbed a water proof electrical connection off of Amazon.

 

Buy a flat 4 pin towing connector. Cut it in half, one end to the brake harness, other end to the shell. Cheap and can DC when needed