Putco Freedom Blade tailgate light bar.

[dc73pdsgt]

So I installed the Freedom Blade today along with the harnesses and the box that is supposed to resolve the issues related to installing a tailgate light bar on my Maverick Hybrid. When I connect the 4 pin from the box to the light harness the drivers side taillight doesn’t work. The blinker and brake light work but the taillight doesn’t. Also the lightbar doesn’t work. It will initially flash white then nothing. if I disconnect everything and remove the fuse box and reinstall with none of the freedom blade connected all lights work normally. Any help here would be appreciated.

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[BlueSpec1]

So I installed the Freedom Blade today along with the harnesses and the box that is supposed to resolve the issues related to installing a tailgate light bar on my Maverick Hybrid. When I connect the 4 pin from the box to the light harness the drivers side taillight doesn’t work. The blinker and brake light work but the taillight doesn’t. Also the lightbar doesn’t work. It will initially flash white then nothing. if I disconnect everything and remove the fuse box and reinstall with none of the freedom blade connected all lights work normally. Any help here would be appreciated.

Putco's control/driver box appears to load the BCM's FET output for the turn/taillight and cause the malfunction.

The Blade Freedom and Ford/Putco have a similar control/driver box, but different harnesses.

Most of the info posted relates to the Maverick Ford Light Bar that's made by Putco:
MTC sundancer370's post on limiting inrush Ford LED Tailgate Lightbar Installed

Ranger5G had similar posts about the Putco light bar:
https://www.ranger5g.com/forum/threads/putco-led-light-bar.21594/

 

[dc73pdsgt]

I thought the purpose of the box was to prevent the issues related to the BCM. Obviously not! Gotta wait till Monday now to talk with Putco but am leaning toward returning this thing.

 

[SteveW12TCA]

I have the same Putco product and had the same issue. I ultimately added the Curt wiring harness for the Maverick and now don’t have any issues with the lightbar. With the Curt harness, everything functions as it should. Unfortunately it adds more expense to an already expensive product.

 

[dc73pdsgt]

Don’t understand how this harness would wire into the Putco system. The Putco already has wiring harness between the two lights that then connects to the box they supply which is connected to the power lead I ran from the fuse box and battery connection. Where does the curt harness connect in this supposed plug and play system?

 

[SteveW12TCA]

The original Putco blade I received did not have a wiring harness that plugged into the taillights - only the box that then would plug into a 4 pin trailer connector. The Curt harness provided the connections to the taillights and then provides an independent 4-pin connector for the Putco blade
To plug into. The power for the system then is provided by running to the battery. Hope that makes sense. Sounds like I may have had an earlier version of the Putco blade before they tried to correct the conflict.

 

[dc73pdsgt]

yea this new one looks to emulate the Curt harness I guess.. It plugs into the two taillights and then has a 4 pin connector that plugs into the box along with a seperate wire for the reverse lights and then that all plugs into the power harness I had to install. seems simple enough but then when I plug the 4 pin connector in, the drivers side taillight doesnt work and nothing I did seemed to resolve that. I'll be on the phone with Putco first thing in the morning tomorrow. Im leaning on just returning the whole thing asa it's too much of a pain in the ass to deal with and for the cost of this thing you would think they got it right the first time.

 

[dc73pdsgt]

so I ended up returning the whole thing and decided to invest the almost $600 on a cap for the bed of the truck. Im looking at the ARE model V fiberglass shell and this money will go towards that. what a waste of time for what was supposed to be plug and play. bad bad bad Putco!

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