Light bar question?

[Muddy Boots]

So here is the idea...

I am thinking of killing two birds with one stone here. I have got a tow bar with electrics running to it and I want to relocate the electric socket out of the way. I was thinking of feeding it into the cab as everytime I go fording it fills with water, mud etc.

I was wondering if I wired 4 spots up on a thule bar and then connected them in a similar way to the light board you get on the back of trailors.

My fog light is shafted and I was going to use this switch to turn the lights on and off maybe.

The other alternative is just have them perminently connected to come on when the light bar is plugged in to the tow bar electrics. This in theory should turn the roof lights on when I put my normal driving lights on.

Is this do-able?

Hope this makes sense.

I was thinking about building another row of lights on a thule bar with two roof mounted brake lights and a rear facing light as an additional reverse light.

These are obvoiusly not perminent mods and would most likely be only used for green laning.

Oh and final question is this legal on the normal road

[firestorm]

I am not sure why you want to do it that way, but there are a few problems. The wiring to the rear lights and trailer lighting socket are basically near their max amps already. Toyota ran the wiring to the tail lights allowing for around 12 amp total load, then you add a trailer lighting bar and its 24amp, Adding a roof light bar would result in overloading the electrical system, with a probable fire as the eventual outcome. 4 spots at 55w each is 18.4 amp so that would be 42.5 amp going to your rear lights.
But on a more positive note you would be helping to safeguard my job and many other fire-fighters jobs

You could use the fog light wire to activate a relay, but you would still have to run heavy wiring from the front to the back for the load, also the longer the wire the more voltage you lose, and you would fail the M.O.T for no fog light. Personally I would just drill a hole in the roof and run the wiring down the inside of the wind screen pillar (A pillar), Then to a relay etc. Drilling a hole in a roof sounds terrible but there are I few things you can do to make it neat,

first I would remove the interior trim like the A pillar plastic and the interior light fitting etc. This will allow you to figure out where to drill and feed the wires. Take it from me, do this as you will save time, I remember when I drilled into a roof only to find that part was double skinned.

Next you actually want to drill along the centre line (not at the side of the roof), the reason being is if you want to sell the surf you remove the lights and wiring. And fit a cheap car roof aerial in the hole in the roof for the cable, and you won’t lose value because you’ve drilled a hole through the roof for a cable. After all its a surf with a properly placed roof areal (phone, GPS etc), now’t wrong with that??

Order a small ip86 cable gland, or pop over to maplin etc, (black white or gray)this will give you a water proof trouble free seal, and you will know how big a hole you need to drill in the roof.

Place masking tape over the rough area you will be drilling, this will allow you to mark up the work with a pencil and it will stop the drill bit slipping, work your way up from a small pilot drill to the correct size. Hoover up all the swarf from the drilling as this is what causes most of future rust. Don’t blow it away as it get trapped in small crevices and rust like hell within days. Treat the sides of the hole with paint etc, either primer and top coat or just top coat. Can be any colour as you will never see it. Don’t just use primer alone, as its porous so will actually absorb water.

From then on, its simple wiring. To work out the load, add up the wattage of the lights then divide by the voltage to give you the amps for the wiring, relay and fuse. As you’re using a relay the switch can be low amp. So 4 x 55w = 220w divided by 12 (voltage) = 18.3 amp so 20 amp relay and fuse etc.

If you tap into the live feed to the headlight main beam and use that to the spotlight switch, the roof lights will switch off when you dip your head lights.
So wiring is//// main beam positive to spot light switch / spot light switch to + relay coil/ - relay coil to earth(body)/ then the main power feed to inline fuse/ inline fuse to the relay/ main power feed from relay to lights/=====simple

As for the rear high level lights/ I think that could look cool.. personally I would go for L.E.D’s no excessive current to worry about, long lasting, waterproof and neat. Have a look at this on EBay http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/01-06-Suzuki-B...3A1|240%3A1318
Item number: 230317161040 you would need two but they would be small and discreet and simple to wire in. Brake/side and turn in one small unit. Yea it would be expensive but would look so much better than a high level trailer board. After all if looks were not important to us we would be driving land rover 110s

Not sure about legality of them mounted high, its been around 12years since I M.O.T‘d cars for a living. so I am a bit out of touch with the rules, but you do come across vehicles with high level lights. I think the AA breakdown trucks have a second high level set??? And our last fire appliance had them as well??? but I remember if you have lights fitted they must work, so changing from low level to high level is not an option. Both sets working may be???

[MattF]

Oh and final question is this legal on the normal road

The height of the brake lights would be illegal, I believe, but other than that, can't see any probs. Just make sure you use all wiring precautions for ratings and suitable relays and feeds. (As, I believe, is posted above in somewhat more depth).

[firestorm]

also try this?http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Red-LED-Side-M...3A1|240%3A1318

[fatfires]

The height of the brake lights would be illegal, I believe, but other than that, can't see any probs. Just make sure you use all wiring precautions for ratings and suitable relays and feeds. (As, I believe, is posted above in somewhat more depth).

dont know if the law has changed because all the ambulances down here have high level brake and indicator lights, as do quite a lot of tankers I have seen recently