Custom Jeep TJ lightbar

From Neural Wiki

For my birthday I got a set of KC daylighters and a KC lite bar made from autobarn.com. Unfortunately, the KC lite bar ended up placing the lights directly behind my bumper, so another solution was in order.

After throwing around several possibilities, my buddy and I decided that building a light bar out of 1 1/2" angle iron would solve the problem. Once finished it blends in with the existing bumper, and allows me to put on a total of four lights including two in the existing tube bumper hoop.

Once a suitable piece of 48" angle iron was obtained from the local hardware store, we drilled two holes so that the piece was centered and used the stock bumper bolts (green arrows below). Note that the bolts have a T55 torx head on them and come off relatively easy. I got the T55 socket from my local NAPA Auto store where they sell them individually

Next we drilled holes for the lights. After playing around with positioning I decided to mount two in the hoop and one in front of each fender. Once we were happy with the location of each light, we drilled a 1/2" hole.

Then we needed to notch the bar so that it would sit flush with the bumper. I used a 3 1'2" angle grinder with a cutoff wheel and cut out the notches.....Side note, this angle grinder is my all purpose metal/roof removal tool and has been involved in other projects of mine. See The Converted

After measuring, start cutting the vertical slits

After cutting the vertical slits, connect them with a horizontal cut

Finished cut

After cleaning up the rough cuts with the grinder, the metal was cleaned with a wire brush attached to the drill then primed and painted (black of course).

[edit] Wiring the KC lights

Now comes the complicated part, wiring up the lights. Depending on your state, you may have to wire the lights so that they only come on with your high or low beams. I chose to wire them directly to the on KC switch so that I could turn them on at any time even when the head lights were off or the key was not in the ignition.

To wire it up, the first thing to do was figure out where to mount the relay. It needed to be close to the battery, so I attached it to the wiring harness that runs along the fire wall right where the hood support strut intersects the fire wall (see below).

I then wired the yellow wire coming out of the relay and the end of the white wire to the hot post in the fuse box closest to the battery.

Then I ran the green and white wire into the cab. The instructions suggested running them through the door, but with a Jeep there are better options available. I found a rubber stopper located under the clutch master cylinder, popped it out then ran the wires into the cab. They end up coming out right behind the petals.

[edit] Switch placement

The Wrangler has three switch blanks just above the cigarette lighter, and this seemed like the perfect place for the switch. I could have ordered an actual switch from jeep, but why spend the money when there are other cooler options that stick out further. First I removed the plastic where the upper defroster vents are. All you have to do is put a screwdriver under the corners and pop it up.

This will expose two screws which hold the center console cover in place. Then we removed the ash tray by opening it and pressing the tab on top. This exposed the last screw holding the center console in place. Once these screws were removed, we pried the console cover off by pulling from the bottom. Then we unhooked the cigarette lighter/blank switch cluster from the Jeep.

Then we removed one of the switch blanks and drilled a hole into it so that we could install the switch that came with the KCs.

Then we had to get the green and white wire to the switch. It ended up being easiest to run them behind the console and then pushed them out near the radio. This takes some doing, but we didn't have to drill any holes to run the wires. While in there, we did drill a hole for the screw that grounds the brown wire. Before putting it back together we made sure that the setup worked.

Then we reassembled the center console with the switch in place and wired up. Next we hooked up the actual lights by running the wires along the air filter and then threading them between the radiator and the passenger headlight. Then we ran them under the bumper so that they popped out under the plastic cover that says Jeep.

Then we mounted the lights, hooked them up used some zip ties to clean up the wiring and were ready to go. Now the Jeep is awesome will be envied by all those other Jeep owners and wannabe Jeep owners who don't have 'em.

[edit] Disclaimer

This worked well for me, but if you do something similar make sure to use your own common sense.