Installing offroad lights?

[xrunnr]

I am thinking of installing offroad lights on my brush guard and roof rack myself on my '01 DII with a safety devices rack. 2 lights on the brush guard and 4 on the front of the roof rack and 1 on the back of the rack. I have moderate knowledge of working on my car but I have never installed offraod lights before. Can someone supply me with a play by play of how to go about this? thanks

[wimp]

Someone will probably chime in with more detailed info, but you will first need to purchase the lights and see what the wiring kit includes. I installed inexpensive lights on my truck. (2) hella 500's on the brush bar and (4) Hella 50's (small oval ones) on my SD rack.

The 2 fronts use the wiring for the stock lower fog lights. It is as simple as pulling the existing wiring to the new location, adding extansion wiring, and presto!

I wired my 4 top lights with one fusable relay. The running lights on the front corner of the car is my relay trigger. this way I can run the lights with my headlights off (for water crossing). I used a 25 amp fuse in the relay. I ran only two wires to the roof rack (in the trim on the side of the windshield). I used heavier ga. wire than the kit provided so that I can intall brighter lights at some point down the road. You may want to run more wires with two relays. This way you can separately turn on different lights up there, also you will have more flexibility with brighter lights.

All your connectors should be waterproof shrink type connectors. If you go the easy/cheap route you will kick yourself. The cheap press together connectors that don't melt onto the connecor are crap and not suitable for outdoor use. They will fail in no time and piss you off!

Also, you should make a visor that shield the glare off the windshield. I used light ga. alum cut to fit with metal shears. I sandwiched the visor in between the rack and the light. Makes your un-usable upper lights into usable lights. Trust me, if you install lights onto this car (sloped windshield unlike a defender) with the SD rack, you will never turn them on becasue the glare is so bad. Don't bother with a anti-glare decal on the hood. It makes very little difference. Once you off road for ten minutes, you hood will be the color of the dust and/or mud that you are wheeling in anyway!

also, use rubberized quick disconnects where the light harness attaches to the rack. This way you can simply unplug the wiring and remove the rack off your truck if you wish. Otherwise you have to screw around with wiring any time you want to remove your rack.

I will send pictures of my setup soon.

I did not bother with a rear work light, so I don't have the skinny on that. I usually have a headlamp handy when offroading or camping at night. Works fine for me.

good luck!

[wimp]

here are some pictures

[dkeach]

Originally Posted by wimp

The 2 fronts use the wiring for the stock lower fog lights. It is as simple as pulling the existing wiring to the new location, adding extansion wiring, and presto!

I'm curious if your lower fog lights are still hooked to the same circuit and....if when you have your regular headlight brights on, the brush guard mounted lights then go off due to sharing the circuit with the fogs?
dk

[wimp]

my lower lights only come on if the low beams are on, they will shut off if high beams are used.

[stolenheron]

thats really good advice wimp. i just bought my hannibal roof rack. I basically had my design for the front dead on with yours, except i didnt think of the glare shields. how did you attach the wires to the windshield edges??

Also where should I run the wires if i make a rear fog light setup? I am more than likely to add a reverse foglight setup before a forward facing one condsidering i have a few pairs of defender reverse lights which will assist my factory ones.

I'm definetly gonna add a new switch though instead of adding them to my factory relays and what not.

[wimp]

not sure about routing to the rear. Never done it! Plenty of people on the board have done it though!

I put the wires in a plastic split conduit and attached the the rack.
The wire comes out of the conduit to a quick disconnect near the passenger side upper corner of the windshield. The wires poke into the plastic trim next to the windshield. The wire goes all the way down and enters the engine compartment. Simple!

[stolenheron]

okey dokey. thanks for the info!