Fumbling in the dark? can't see your gear? add a dome light!

Not that gear you pervs.

Anyway, ever find yourself fumbling in the dark trying to unload your stuff out of the rear cargo area? Just add a dome light and say hello to light! With this dome light, you can have it so that it turns on automatically whenever you open the rear door. On trips at night, with the light, your rear passengers can see what they're getting for you whenever you ask them to fetch you a snack or beverage.

I got a 98 Rodeo dome light and installed it the the headliner just above the rear cargo area and just before the rear plastic trim. (up top). The wiring is pretty simple so I won't go into it in detail. But, basically, all you'd need is a constant 12 volt power source, a pin switch to act as a ground interrupt switch, and a good ground. The dome light has a switch with 3 positions. OFF, pin switch activated ON, and manual ON.

Use this template.

Once you have the tamplate situated where you want the dome light to mount, tape it in place and start cutting with a sharp exacto. Remove the rear top plastic trim and pull down the headliner a little so you can mount the domelight with some bolts and washers. You may want to stick a piece of masonite up there to bolt the dome light to (sandwich the headliner between the masonite and domelight). Or, if you wish, you can take some Aluminum straps and make some flat brackets to bolt the dome light to. Either way... whatever works best for you. Now all you have to do is wire the ground terminal on the switch to a good ground source (use a multimeter or test light to find a good ground), wire up the power source terminal to a constant 12 volt source, and install and wire up the ground interrupt pin switch to the pin switch activated terminal on the domelight and you're set.

Don't forget to ground the pin switch... or the light won't turn on automatically when you have the rear door open. Below, a rough picture of the light's "gut" side. Will post more pictures later.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/p_ting/VX/domelight.jpg

Connect it to the stock dome light and you’ll have all those features and it will light when you open the front doors as well. If you’ve added a popper kit with pin switch, you’ll be covered when any door is open. Stock VX dome lights are $35 at the dealer or I got one off a new Chevy that has reading lights for the rear passengers as well as the standard dome.

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Originally posted by Tone
Connect it to the stock dome light and you’ll have all those features and it will light when you open the front doors as well. If you’ve added a popper kit with pin switch, you’ll be covered when any door is open. Stock VX dome lights are $35 at the dealer or I got one off a new Chevy that has reading lights for the rear passengers as well as the standard dome.

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But since the rear door does not have a switch that tie into the other door switches, if you open only the rear gate the dome light will not turn on. A pin switch (or Tone's popper kit which has a pin switch) will allow the dome light to work with all doors.

The Rodeo dome light I got came from the salvage yard. $10. Any dome light will work. I picked the Rodeo's because it's Isuzu (figuring it would look somewhat stock) and it's cheap from the junkyard. They didn't have any VX, but had about 10 Rodeos/Amigos.

This is the first mod I did. If you use the stock dome light, you press the lens to turn on the light when you open the rear door. Just wire to the original dome light.
Roy