Wire gauge @ tailgate?

[CapnMericaMyCopilot]

Hi all-
I finally decided I’m going to take the spare off the back. Yes I know I’ll lose space when I have to load it up but it’s my commuter vehicle 99% of the time and I’ll work around it for road trips and trail time.

My question is, what are the gauges of the wires i will need to splice into for third brake/license plate? I’m waiting on the Poison Spyder (generic) one to arrive. Also, can I splice my CB ground into the same one? Since I’ll be working anyways figure I may as well clean it up. Right now I just have it going to a bolt on my Tuffy security deck (seems to be grounded somehow here).

Thanks. And if anyone near NJ would be interested in an EVO hinged carrier it’s what I’ll be removing shortly.


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[SWTrailJKU]

I’ve done the same thing back and forth. Although the spare is on now, I wired up an ORO plate light/third brake light LED. Rather than cutting or splicing into the wires on the right side brake light assembly for the plate light, I ran the hot wire from the plate plug on the left side. While it was kinda a pain to run it that far I liked that by using the plug from the discarded plate bracket I didn’t have to touch the factory wiring. I then cut and spiced the plug from the factory third brake light and used it’s ground for both plate and third brake light on the ORO. The wires I used were 18 gauge (needed about 6 ft) and that matches up with the wiring on the rear of the Jeep. Not sure about the Poison Spyder light, but the ORO wiring was thinner...most likely only 20 gauge. Not sure about the CB.

 

[maskale]

they are 20-18AWG, what kind of CB ground you got back there? for the antenna?

 

[CapnMericaMyCopilot]

they are 20-18AWG, what kind of CB ground you got back there? for the antenna?

Yes, the antenna ground for firestik and wire


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[Spazbyt]

I'm no electrosmith so take this with a grain of salt. I heard that ground travels better through actual ground straps because of the wavelength or some magical thing like that. I guess that explains why you see ground straps instead of just a single gauge wire. My auto parts store has 15" ground straps on the shelf for 6 bucks so I went with that.