1997 LED Light bar install

mwm695

New member
It's been busy with school and all, so I haven't gotten a chance to do a write up for installing the light bar.

Well, here it is!

Supplies


  • The Light Bar: 120W Cree LED combo spot/flood. (Light bar link). So far, no complaints. No LED's have gone out, no moisture behind the lens, and I live in central PA at Penn State (plenty of snow/rain).


  • Wiring Harness: 40Amp Mictuning harness (Link to Harness) This one has a second "pig tail" for additional lights later (I'm thinking ditch lights via CBI brackets:guitar2: ).

  • I didn't like the switch that came with it, so I also ordered a rocker switch to go along with it. This fit perfectly in the preexisting holes, and the light in the switch for my Hella fogs went out, so I bought a couple of them!


  • To mount it to the truck, I used two OUTDOOR L-Brackets from Lowes. Make sure they are "outdoor" because they face the elements (i.e. salt, rain, etc). They were roughly 3 3/4".

  • Small hacksaw
  • Metric Socket wrench set


Price:
Fog $77.99
Harness $17.99
Switch $10.95
L-Brackets $6.08

Total $113.01

Installation

First, you have to cut out the plastic section of the bumper directly below the grill. I used a hack saw, and kinda f***'d up the bumper, so be careful as you cut.
7SyxMMZl.jpg


RxnHFyQl.jpg


The middle is held on to the physical bumper via two 10mm bolts, I them off after I cut the entire thing out, but that's up to you.

Next, drill another hole about an inch down from the pre-drilled hole on the L-Brackets.

Now, pre-drill two holes into the lower radiator support on each side. The two larger holes on the end were just about the perfect distance apart (roughly 24"). BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN DRILLING. THERE IS ONLY A COUPLE INCHES BETWEEN THE BIT AND THE RADIATOR.

Passenger side:
reVAveal.jpg


Driver side:
lhiIh3Pl.jpg


Note the condenser pipe location on the drivers side.

Using a hack saw, cut small blocks of the lower lip out where the L-Brackets are. Roughly 1.5" in, and 1" wide. This will allow the supports of the light bar to attach to the L-bracket, and brings the bar slight farther forward.

pxSk98yl.jpg


And then the same on the other side.


Wiring

Now, run the wiring harness. (Sorry I didn't take any pictures, I decided it was a good idea to do it at night and in the rain.) BE CAREFUL WHILE WORKING AROUND BATTERIES/ELECTRICITY.
It's fairly simple. Poke a small hole in the rubber grommet (rear drivers side of engine bay), and feed the switch end of the harness through, without the switch attached. Then run the wires up to one of the switch covers, and connect the switch. Next, run the wires down to where the light bar will be, and organize (wire ties) the relay, fuse, and extra wires on the drivers side near the battery. Connect the negative (black) wires for the switch and relay to the negative terminal battery, then the positive (red) wires to the positive terminal of the battery. (The harness comes with instructions)

Connect the light bar with the harness.


Final Installation

Using the supplied mounting bolts from the light bar, attach to the L-Brackets, and tighten the bolts up well.

Test the system out, and voila! 7500 lumens!

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FOOvaVhl.jpg


Driving back from skiing through a pitch black state forest, this came quite in handy.

QdKl2pIl.jpg



BE CAREFUL NOT TO HAVE OTHER FOG LIGHTS ON AT THE SAME TIME (Not like you could see them, these drown out my low beams) THE STANDARD ALTERNATOR ONLY PUTS OUT ROUGHLY 35AMPS AT IDLE, 10 OF WHICH WILL GO TO THE LIGHT BAR, THE REST TO YOUR HEADLIGHTS, DASH LIGHTS, BLOWER FAN, HEAD UNIT, ETC... Eventually, I will relay the system so that only the Hella Fogs or the LED bar can be on at a time, which I will post here when I do. In the meantime, I just have to be aware of which is on. (Thanks to [MENTION=107811]csp[/MENTION] and [MENTION=116387]Unner[/MENTION] for trying to help here).

If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
 
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Which, now that I'm thinking about it, a 15A fuse on a 40A relay doesn't make any sense...lol

Um... Not really. A Fuse is sized by the nominal load, you want to put the smallest possible for greatest protection. The relay is sized by max current it can support.

Let's see some pics with the light bar off. Also curios how much jitter you have with the lightweight brackets.
 
I still want to see pics of the bar mounted with the light off :).

You go it!

Um... Not really. A Fuse is sized by the nominal load, you want to put the smallest possible for greatest protection. The relay is sized by max current it can support.

Let's see some pics with the light bar off. Also curios how much jitter you have with the lightweight brackets.

Surprisingly not much jitter at all! Took it down a bumpy/snowy trail with no issues!

Here are the pics!

672OOlNl.jpg


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eask8i9l.jpg
 
Looks good!

I mounted mine to the top of the fat lip style bumper with some homemade aluminum brackets and they don't move much either. It's barely noticeable going down a gravel/rutted washboard road at pretty good speeds.
 
I was thinking of doing the same thing to mine but opted not to cut the bumper. Instead put some 2x 27w round LEDs behind the grill which hides them and works great.

Thanks for sharing though! It does look better than I expected!

And a relay takes very little power to trigger, which is the whole point of a relay. Little amps turn big amps on. Your fog lights probably draw more power than that LED, which are on separate circuits... so not sure why you can't use both at the same time.....
 
I did the same mod a few weeks ago, but used a 30" curved bar. It filled the gap perfectly. I made brackets out of 1 1/4" angle bolted to the frame. Zero wobble.
 
Exactly how would you calculate what size fuse you need for a led bar ?

Here's a pic of mine. Also Cree led, but the bar made by extreme led solutions at miamioffroad4wd.com

Front 41.5


And the rear one 21.5"


They gave me 20% off, free harness, and one free rocker switch.
 
Looks very clean. I like it.

Thanks!

I was thinking of doing the same thing to mine but opted not to cut the bumper. Instead put some 2x 27w round LEDs behind the grill which hides them and works great.

Thanks for sharing though! It does look better than I expected!

And a relay takes very little power to trigger, which is the whole point of a relay. Little amps turn big amps on. Your fog lights probably draw more power than that LED, which are on separate circuits... so not sure why you can't use both at the same time.....

The light bar is 120w, and the Fogs are 55w ea (110w in total), so each draw about 10A. I'm more concerned about the amperes created at idle than anything else. It's the engineer in me that wants to protect the system on the whole, regardless of whether or not its at idle or on the same circuit. I always create something that works at the bare minimum, and is "user error" proof, so it functions there and above without causing damage to anything else.

So, yes I could have both on at the same time, just not at idle. However, this thing drowns out my headlights and fogs so it doesn't really matter. :laugh:

I did the same mod a few weeks ago, but used a 30" curved bar. It filled the gap perfectly. I made brackets out of 1 1/4" angle bolted to the frame. Zero wobble.

Very nice! Any pics?

Exactly how would you calculate what size fuse you need for a led bar ?

Here's a pic of mine. Also Cree led, but the bar made by extreme led solutions at miamioffroad4wd.com

Front 41.5


And the rear one 21.5"


They gave me 20% off, free harness, and one free rocker switch.

It's the fuse that comes with the harness, but its easy to calculate. Power (measure in Watts) is equal to the current times the voltage. Since you know the power and the voltage (12V in most cars), you can determine the current draw, and then put a fuse in that's the closest to that current. So, since the bar draws roughly 10A, a 15A Fuse should be used.
 
Wow i love that idea of putting the bar in the bumper. I have been thinking about buying one for my roof rack, but i like this better. I see Sierra's and F-150's with them in the front bumper all the time but it never registered to put one there in my 4runner.... haha
 

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