Well Im back, sorta! Been a little busy with the birth of our first child but I did manage to finish some projects before he came. I ran out of time to make posts about it but now that we are settling in and Im forced to be away from the shop(sitting at home with baby) Ive got some time to be on the computer.
For starters I installed passive entry handles for all 4 doors and the tailgate. It was quite expensive but I love having it so the price of entry was worth it for me. One thing I wish I would have done was get black door handles instead of silver. I really like the contrasting black trim pieces on the Tradesman trim trucks but Ram doesnt make textured black handles with passive entry. So I ordered color matched billet silver ones only to realize I probably could have gone with painted black handles and gotten the original look out of it, oh well. Im not going to post a writeup because there are tons of them out there. I used all OEM parts except for the wiring harness which I got from
@Jimmy07
Next up was installing my Switch Pros 9100. Since Power Wagons cant be made to work with OEM aux switches I decided to run a 9100. I had a very similar setup in my old Tacoma and liked it so I went ahead with it. Originally I purchased the SDHQ mounting kit for a 9100 in a 19+ HD Ram but I didnt wind up using all of it. Its a nice kit and I did use part of it, their switch panel mounting piece, which is just an OEM trim piece that they laser cut to work with the 9100 switch panel. It would be nice, in the future, to figure out how to wire the power steps override switch to the 9100. Im not sure if its possible to get a 3 pole switch to work with a 9100. If someone has seen a writeup for that, please post it!
The part of the SDHQ kit that I didnt use is the mount for the 9100 brain, which mounts right behind the driver headlight. I hate messy wires so I wanted to build something cleaner looking than whats out there for these trucks. This required some fabrication because I wanted to copy the setup I had from Powertrays that incorporates an additional fuse block, bus bar and mount for the Switchpros brain. The problem was where to put it under the hood. I spent a day or so messing around with some locations and landed on the area right above the fuse box. This required some ingenuity however, because you still need to access the fuse/relay box below. So I got a sheet of 1/8" aluminum and went to town. Here is what I wound up with. The parts are bolted on in this pic when I was testing fitment.
Here I am wiring up everything.
A few things to note here. I used the power wire that Switch Pros supplies with their kit, its fused which is good. I ran it straight from the battery to the unit. Its cool that there are multiple hot posts on the battery from the factory that are under their own little hinged cover. Makes adding accessories a breeze.
I did not put an inline fuse to my Blue Sea fuse block. I bought a dual MRBF terminal fuse block but didnt wind up using it. I would have had to cut a lot of plastic off the battery compartment so decided against it for a cleaner look. Since everything that will be wired to the fuse block has its own fuse, in theory if the line feeding the block from the battery were to pop, the individual accessory fuses would also pop so the only thing that should blow would be a couple feet of wire and some fuses. Anyway, Im not worried about that happening. The Switch Pros brain is fused and thats the most important/expensive part.
Here it is all complete. Im considering making a run of these and selling them if there is enough interest. I think the diesel trucks have the same battery location/orientation/setup so this should work for both gas and diesel. Not sure if Im going to powder coat it or leave it raw aluminum. Right now the only accessory I have wired to the fuse block are my power steps. Some day soon Ill install OBA and wire it to the fuse block/9100. Not sure what else Ill have in the future but its nice to have more than you need.
The mount I made is 3 pieces, completely clears the fuse box lid and is 100% removable and returnable to stock with no modification to the truck needed. There is a plate on the right side that mounts underneath OEM fasteners. I used nutserts and threaded nobs to hold the main plate in place. Then the left side is a vertical post that mounts using the brake fluid reservoir bolt. There is a stainless steel piano hinge that allows the accessory plate to be hinged upward for access to the fuse box.
