Alright everyone, here's another post about 3rd brake lights. After cruising through several other posts and their subsequent threads, there seems to be a lot of variation concerning the location of the actual 3rd brake light assembly connector plug that's concealed by the headliner. Some people say it's a few feet away, others say it's just inches away.

Exactly how far forward from the rear window is it on a Super-Cab? Since I've got a rear slider I can open the window and stick my head back far enough to see the wiring harness if I slightly tug on the headliner...but I can't see the actual grey connector plug. If I just pull off the two plastic retainer pins will this give me enough play in the headliner to work with?

I need to slap in a Lightning brake lamp...I want that cool LED stuff.

 

The EVTM for 2001 shows a connector on the back of the high mounted stop lamp, so by the manual the first connector is right there.

The high mount stop lamp that you got, it the connector right on the back, or is there a pig tail on it ?

If you remove the stock high mount stop lamp, it should be ther straight away, no need to take out any more then that to get to the connector.

At least this is what the manual shows on page 151-15 and connector info on page 90-3.

See if someone stops by that has had it out to confirm.

 

Hey bud here's the scoop. The plug for the 3rd brake light is connected to the inside dome light which in your case because you have a S-Crew it will be about a foot away from the rear slider. Plus depending on how the people at the factory installed it it could be tucked back in a little further. So what you need to do is remove the dome light and maybe the two coat hooks. It's very easy. The dome light just pop off the lens cover and there should be three Phillips head screws. Same for the coat hooks. This will give you enough play in the headliner to gently pull it down so you can see the plug. Also there is a little plastic tab on the plug that they use to fasten the harness to the dome light bracket. If you can't pop it off the bracket just try to cut the plastic to free it up. Pretty simple to do just be careful you don't put to bad of a crease in the headliner.
Hope that helps.

 

Thanks for the responses everyone. The Lightning LED high mount brake lamp went in this afternoon. Like most of you I scored one off of e-Bay for about $100. For those of you with super-cabs, the little grey connector is only about 4 inches forward of the back window.

Here's the low down on the installation. First, I removed the 2 plastic barbed retainers that support the rear edge of the headliner. Since I've got a rear slider, this gave me plenty of room to work. I then unscrewed the original high mount brake lamp assembly from the cab and separated the 3 light bulb sockets from the lens. Next came the work underneath the headliner. As mentioned earlier the grey plastic connector sits about 4 inches forward of the rear window on a super-cab. The cab side of the wiring harness is fastened to the roof panel with a plastic retainer @ the connector, but the brake lamp side is not. However, the brake lamp side of the connector has a locking tab. I used a small flat head screw driver to gently lift the tab and separate the connectors. Once everything was disconnected, I removed the brake lamp's wiring harness from the cab. This required some finessing, because it's fastened to the back of the cab with a sturdy rubber grommet. With this completed, the Lightning LED lamp went in with the greatest of ease. No runs, no drips, no errors, and the job was cleaner than any dealership would have done.

 

I just did the L 3rd brake light this weekend and it wasn't anything like the previous posts. Just getting my hands to the connector was difficult and the most I could do was touch it with the tip of my fingers. The headliner started to crease so I decided to remove the whole liner. Unclipping the connector required both hands which would have been extremely difficult using just one hand had the headliner not be removed. All in all, it's simpler to remove a few screws then slide the headliner off then unclip and clip the new LED light on rather than spend 30mins blindly feeling the connector. Having the liner off will allow me to do the Dynamat roof project too.

New light blends right into the grey trim and are very bright!

 

Hmmmm.......mine seemed relatively clean and simple. But as I mentioned earlier, having the rear slider simplifies the install since it enables you to lean your head out the back and create a line of site to the connector.