In the quest for more light at the rear of the vehicle for loading and unloading at night or cooking/setting up camp after dark, I added a Cree XR-E LED to the rear hatch. To give you an idea of the light output and efficiency, the LED pulls 1.7 watts and puts out 150 lumens of light. The stock incandescent cargo light draws 5 watts and puts out around 50 lumens of light. This LED is so bright I decided not to mount a second one on the other side of the hatch. It is wired to come on when you open the hatch and I also wired a switch to allow you to turn it off. It is mounted in an Acura Legend door light housing that I pulled from the wrecking yard. I simply cut off the incandescent stuff and screwed in an aluminum housing to mount the LED and act as a heatsink to dissipate the heat.



View of the LED with the lens removed:


Lens in place:


Note the amount of light on the ground behind the truck:
[img width=598 height=800]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LZajI1ZVesU/TdydMvRIbSI/AAAAAAAAFp4/ljgKwbfo5PI/s400/hatchlight4.jpg[/img]

The light output is hard to believe; like I said, it is very bright!

I also installed some standard green 5mm LEDs to illuminate the rear heater control and another one hidden in the center console that dimly illuminates the cupholder area.



You can also see the footwells illuminated via LEDs as well as the new powered GPS mount.

Next up is to replace the center dome light and rear cargo light with LEDs to complete the interior illumination.

EDIT--broken photo links fixed.