The Ford F-150 Lightning has great headlights, but it has no fog lights, and here in the foothills of Oregon’s Coast Range, fog is a fact of life for half the year.
Back in March, in Part 1, Nikki fitted a Ford headlight switch with front and rear fog buttons. Now, in Part 2, armed with a pair of used Diode Dynamics SSC2 Pro fog lights and some pages from Ford’s wiring manual, she takes Ortegas apart to find out whether the truck’s Body Control Module can actually drive them.
As is often the case with any project, this took a little longer than the day-project we’d set aside (one of the reasons Nikki was procrastinating on it for so long) – but after a failed attempt to pin the BCM plugs needed to bring the fog light control wiring out to a usable place (and some overnighted new pins) – things are looking pretty good.
The rear fog light circuit, which everyone said the North American F-150 simply doesn’t have, works (although the telltale doesn’t, and we don’t know why). And while we initially hit a road block with the front fogs, an 11th-hour flip in FORScan seems to have fixed things… but that’s for the NEXT video.
Full shownotes, links, and transcript at:
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*⏱️ Chapter Breakdown*:
00:00 – Introduction
01:34 – Fog lights… why we want them
03:09 – The Lightning doesn’t have fog light space
04:15 – The used fog lights
05:18 – Where we’re putting them and how they’re going to work
08:33 – Printing off the pages
11:32 – The Plan
15:35 – A little break…and making a loom
18:35 – Yeah… that didn’t work…
19:20 – Or did it?
22:15 – Despite the headaches, it’s a positive outcome
24:57 – Thanks, and goodbye!
📺 More from Ortegas, our F-150 Lightning:
▶️ The F150 Lightning Doesn’t Have Fog Lights. We’re Going To Add Them (Part 1) –
▶️ Time For A FORScan Dash Upgrade on Our Ford F-150 Lightning — Until One Thing Almost Ruined It –
▶️ Slay Or Nay? Meet Our Light-Up F150 Lightning Emblem! –
▶️ We Built a Custom PCB With PCBWay To Make Our Tonneau Cover Smarter –
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*🎙️ Credits:*
Host, Producer: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
Camera, Editor, Color: Vi Horton
Thumbnail: Erin Carlie
Music: “Grateful” by Kitrano, via Artlist.io –
Music: “Got It” (Instrumental Version) by VESHZA, via Artlist.io –
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There goes the suspense for episode two! LOL💡
Awesome video! I watch these videos in 1.25x
Thanks for showing this! I was actually just wanting to put fogs on my Bolt EV as I do drive in some fog and it is that time of year. Are you going to document exactly what changes you made in the Lightning software with FORScan? (You could save people some significant time!) Also, on the next video can you go over what model lights and how well you like the light (brightness, dispersal, beam pattern)? I suspect those are the exact models I want for my Bolt! (Diode Dynamic lights are good, but soooo expensive!)
I can imagine that you, like most of us, are ecstatic at election day results (and they seem to be getting even better as votes are coming in). Congrats!
Thank you! In Germany you have rear fog lights as well and because people there drive like idiots, even in dense fog. They are a critical component to survive on the highway there. I hope you figure it out the forescan settings. Looking forward to part 2! And yes, some red lights for a decisively bluer future in the USA 🙂
Its just like my ol man (may he rest in peace) used to alus tell me-
'If you aint making mistakes then you aint trying'.
!
I saw a vid that I suspect was a troll
BUT
Its title was>>>
Ford has gone insane!!!!!
Ford to build Lightning with a gas engine!!!!
!
Yeah, 2026 has been hell. Until Nov03.
!
So Fords idea for the FATHOM is to sell the truck for cheap
THEN
Ream customers with monthly BlueCruise and other services.
!
I feel like the soundtrack at 24:49 should have more *oontz* *oontz* *oontz* **oontz**….
I assume you tested that the front fog lamps themselves do work? At 24:50… N v m.
Keep Evolving! 👋🏼 🖖🏼👍🏼 Petaluma, CA USA
26:10 make sure Ford PAYS you for any fixes you find!
24:53 You'll wear out the button!
So goes the grind of integration hell 😃😭🤩🫠😬🤬😎🤡🤯
Canbus should allow optional lighting.
Anyone have experience with red laser fog rear indicator light?
Worst case, there's always the option of a 12V tap and a mechanical switch.. =^.^=
You don't drive with those stuffies in your dash do you?
Will I ever own a f150 or lightning? No
Will I ever install fog lights on a vehicle? Probably not
Did I watch the whole video anyway? Yeah
It annoys me that so many vehicles ship from the factory with fog lights – but that the main headlights don't lower/dim appropriately. Our old Prius had completely useless fog lights. I could only even tell they were on because they very slightly illuminated the side edges of the area the mains did – in a slightly different color temperature. (Primary were HID, fog were standard halogen, so slightly yellow compared to the slightly blue primaries.)
I am a firm believer in the use of fog lights in actual fog – not as "look cool running lights" – but fog lights are only more effective when the primary headlights dim/dip! If the primaries are still just blasting away illuminating the *FOG*, the fog lights don't have a chance to be useful.
Thank you for showing when things don’t go as planned at first. Seeing how you fault find, adapt and develop solutions is great to see.