DIY RV Project Exterior Utilities Hook up Light

DIY RV Project Exterior Utilities Hook up Light

Many times you will find yourself trying to hook up the utilities to your RV at dark thirty. Installing an exterior light on your RV will make the task a lot simpler. It doesn’t matter if you are boondocking or hooking up to a park space. You may find yourself in the dark and fumbling around with a flashlight. An exterior light will leave your hands free to make the process of getting things hooked up a lot easier.

Using a $10 light from the local tractor supply outlet and about 8 feet of two strand 12 volt wire is all you need to accomplish this RV mod. The cover for the power cord was removed and a wire was run from the 12 volt connections inside the RV.  A small hole was then made in the side of the RV for the wire after a suitable location for the light was determined. A piece of coat hanger wire was then snaked behind the siding of the RV until it came out at the side of the electrical cord cover opening. The wire was then hooked to the 12 volt electrical wire and pulled through the hole. It was then a simple process of hooking the wires to the light and mounting the base plate to the side of the RV and installing the light cover.

The light included an on/off switch and the cover was mounted with the switch in the down position. Even though the switch was water resistant, mounting it where it was on the bottom helps avoid rain hitting it directly.

It’s a quick and simple RV mod that can be done in less than an hour.

Got RV mod?

Staying above the water line!

Riverwalker

DIY RV Project Exterior Utilities Hook up Light

RV Boondocking Project DIY Installation for a Reverse Light

RV Boondocking Project DIY Installation for a Reverse Light

One of the most difficult tasks when boondocking is backing your RV into a suitable area. This can be made even more challenging if you dont have reverse lights on your RV and its starting to get dark. In many cases, In our case, we usually dont reach our destination until its gotten pretty late in the day. Without decent back-up lights, you could risk serious damage to your RV.

RW, Jr.s RV didnt have any reverse lights and it really made it difficult to back-up when there wasnt much daylight left. To remedy this problem, I installed an LED spotlight on the spare tire carrier on RW, Jr.s RV. If we wind up getting set up late in the evening, we dont have a problem because of a lack of daylight.

.The main obstacle was making a mounting bracket for the light. Replacing the existing taillights with ones that incorporated reverse lights was a pretty expensive proposition and they wouldnt have provided very much additional light. Standard reverse lights arent very bright and wouldnt be a lot of real help when it gets dark.

I used an old aluminum bracket and a piece of 1/2" electrical conduit that was in my junk pile to fabricate a mounting bracket. It only required a couple of holes to be drilled in the spare tire mounting bracket to attach the light. I mounted it in a centered position that enabled the light to be used to its maximum advantage. This gave the maximum amount of light coverage.  

The light was wired directly into the trailer wiring harness to the reverse light wire which hadnt been hooked up. Now RW, Jr has a spotlight that works any time he is backing up his RV. He can also see me when Im guiding him into place if its dark. I used a  10 watt 12 volt  DC LED Floodlight for the reverse light. Its water-proof and puts out a lot of light.

Got boondocking light?

Staying above the water line!

Riverwalker

RV Boondocking Project DIY Installation for a Reverse Light