Starkey Auxiliary Reverse Lighting Kit With Lights/Wiring/Switch F-150 2009-2022

If you've been following our project F-150 eco-boost, you've seen we've done a lot of LED upgrades to it. We've upgraded a lot of the factory bulbs to LEDs and we've installed an LED grill light. Today we're going to give our truck a little more attitude and increased light output in the rear by installing the Starkey Auxiliary Reverse Light kit. Most factory reverse lights often don't put out enough light when backing up at night because they're designed to be seen, not to see with. This LED Auxiliary reverse light will work on your 2009 and 2016 F-150 is a nice, bright 6000k white and has a combined brightness of 2,840 lumens, which will make backing up at night much easier especially when you're pulling a trailer.

Each floodlight has a 40 degree flood pattern, 6 LEDs with over a 30,000 hour LED life span and a max draw of 15 amps. With this kit operating when put through reverse lights and an auxiliary switch, it will be a great addition to our Project F-150. Tools you'll need for this installation: A quarter-inch ratchet, 8 millimeter socket, 10 millimeter socket, 13 millimeter socket, 14 millimeter wrench, a knife or razor blade, snips, pliers, a drill, a drill bit for a pilot hole, a 21 64ths inch drill bit, a rotary tool, and safety glasses.

We're going to start the installation off under the hood with the wiring harness. It does come with a lot, you need to familiarize yourself with this harness. What we're going to do first is run the back half of the wiring harness down into the engine bay to get it out of the way and then we can work on hooking up the front part to the battery and the switch. We're going to take the end of the harness that has the relay on it and we're going to run it down to the inside of the frame. This part isn't necessary, we removed the wheel well here because we're going to be going through a grommet in the fire wall, you can get to it either from the top or the bottom, but for the sake of the video we removed the wheel well which comes off with 4 screws and 2 clips and we think you'll get a better view of it if we take this wheel well out.

Now, we have our wires ran, we can pull it through here and then we can run our harness for the switch through the grommet. For this, I'm going to be using an x-acto knife but you can use a razor blade or knife or probably even a screw driver, but I'm going to be slitting an X in this grommet right here so we can run the harness for the switch into the cabin. This isn't required either, but to make it easier to go through the grommet, we're going to stagger these connectors and electrical tape it just to make it a little bit easier to run. Now we can feed it through the grommet. With the harness mocked up right now, we have our hot wire and ground wire, we're going to hook them to the battery but before we do that we're going to disconnect the battery. Just to insure safety as well as disconnecting the battery, we're also going to remove the fuse from the harness. We're going to loosen up this post on the ground terminal to connect our ground wire. Now for the positive wire. Once we have the whole kit installed, we can reconnect the battery and reinstall the fuse.

Now it's time to install the switch. Before you go ahead and do any cutting, you need to look for a good spot to install the switch that has plenty of room behind it. You need to allow for about 2 inches of room behind the switch so it doesn't interfere with anything. We picked a spot right here on this panel, there's plenty of room behind it. Roughly in this area is the only good location for this switch that we feel is easily accessible for the driver and out of the way of things. If you mounted it in the way over here, you'd be hitting this beam and also on the other side. We're going to put it here next to this switch which is slightly to the left of that beam and there is plenty of room behind it. We have this panel marked where we're going to install the switch, now we're going to remove the connectors and the 2 8 millimeter bolts securing it. There is 2 clips securing this panel in, once you get all the fasteners out just give it a pinch on the backside and remove the panel from the truck.

We have the area roughly marked where we're going to install the switch and it just happens to be right where this material is. First thing we're going to do is cut this off completely and make it flush, then we'll cut a hole for the switch. First going to make our cut for the hole is inside this ridge line here, and then inside the marker line. You want to make your cut smaller than the switch itself, because if you make it too big then the switch won't fit in. You want to make it small, and then if you need to trim it bigger and bigger until it fits perfectly. Now that we see the switch doesn't fit, the hole is not too big we can keep trimming it bigger until the switch fits perfectly. You may need to make a lot of adjustments to this, it could take you a little bit of time but you want to get it just right.

With the switch installed, we can reinstall our panel. Now you can test to make sure that everything fits properly before you wire it up. We're going to connect the orange wire to the top pin on this switch, then the red wire to the middle pin, then the blue wire right beneath that one. Now we take our primary ground, put that at the top, and then our secondary ground to the bottom one. Now just clean up your wiring and you're all set inside. We have the harness ran to the rear of the truck and we're going to be installing this relay. When you run the wiring to the back here, you want to make sure it's away from anything hot and moving suspension parts. Right now it's not zip-tied in place, it's just loosely there but we're going to clean it up and have it tucked away nicely. Now we're going to secure this relay, Starkey recommends to have it positioned vertically when you secure it so we're going to secure it just like this to one of the harnesses up here.

The reverse light on this connector is the center pin so when you flip it around it's the grey wire that goes into the center. We're going to take the wiretap that came with the kit, put it on the grey wire, grab a pair of pliers, and pinch it until it clicks. Now with your wiretap installed, take the blue wire from the LED harness and plug it into the tap. You can plug your connector back in. With everything wired up, you can finally mount the lights. You can mount them wherever you want, but we're going to mount them on the outside of the bumper right here on this flat part underneath. All we need to do to mount these is drill one hole and secure it in. We're going to mount these about an inch away from the toe hitch. We're going to start by drilling this hole with a pilot hole. Now we're going to drill it out with a 21 64ths inch drill bit. Now we can install the light. All right, now we've just got to tighten it up and install the other light. All right. Then you can adjust it however you like, facing down or up, and tighten it with the supplied hex-wrench.

Just repeat the process on the other side. Now we can plug the lights in and see if it works. Before you test the lights, make sure you reinstall the fuse, and now we're going to test them in reverse, now we're going to test it with the auxiliary switch. Now we can finish the installation and clean up the wires. Starkey supplies you with a lot of zip ties, so once you have everything installed and the lights work well, you can clean up the wires. This is what it looks like with just our factory reverse lights with just our factory upgrades, and this is what it looks like with the Starkey reverse light kit. As you can see, the Starkey kit adds a significant amount of light, and it's really going to help with backing up at night.

Our Starkey Auxiliary and Reverse Lighting kit is installed. It looks great, it's going to really help out with backing up with your rear view camera and especially with a trailer. You want to make sure you don't drive with these lights on, that is illegal. Only use these when backing up or if you're parked somewhere. Do not use them driving down the road. Installation should take you about 3 to 4 hours, and before you know it, you'll be heading down the road.