Better lighting for sleeper dome lights

Resurrecting this thread to say thanks. And add some detail and pictures. BTW the price has gone up a few bucks on that part number. Mine was $33.

At least on my 2007 387, it has the momentary on switches to turn the light on (versus an on/off switch). So you have to use the switching board inside the old light. The wiring from the harness connects to that first (4 wires) then there's two wires from that module to the ballast. Those two wires are what you hook up to the LED light.

I say that because I didn't think about that until I took the housing down and got happy drilling out rivets to take everything out. Then I started probing the harness with a voltmeter and realized I needed to reuse part of what I had taken out. Thus all the extra splices in the picture.

It wasn't a total loss, as I drilled some more holes, reused the spacers, and zip tied the switching board into the end for a neater install of the light.

Here's what it looks like all put together.


Close up of the switch board. I could have avoided cutting the four wires. Live and learn.


Here it is, turned on with the cover off. Works just like the fluorescent tube gear did once upon a time.


And with the cover on it looks just like it did with tubes in it. Just brighter. I wouldn't say it's that much brighter. The cover diffuses the light quite a bit. Gets the job done and a whole lot cheaper than $100+ for a complete fixture.

 

Thanks for the info. Our 379's only have on/off switches, so it was a bit simpler, but good to know that you can still make them work on the 387's.

 

My thoughts exactly. I bought an LED rv light for my columbia. Brighter than blazes. It has a switch to take it down to one side if it gets too bright. Cost me $40

 

Grapeape. I picked up the light from Tomah today. The new light has three wires and the old one bad four. How did you wire yours?

 

look at my post above. the 4th wire is from the dash switch.

 

Does anybody know how to get cover off sleeper lights on a 2007 379 peterbilt

 

It's not a bad ballast or switch.
Could be simply the wrong light, either soft white vs bright white.
Best thing to do is either get a strip of white LED lights and wire it in to the existing wires us there, or spend more (65 chrome shop in Indiana has them) and buy the LED replacement.

 

2 screws facing the back of the sleeper. The clear cover itself is glued to the trim which is held on by those 2 screws. Take out the screws and the whole light assembly trim comes down. Fixture itself stays connected to the ceiling.