Let there be light! In reverse!

[Allnew2Me]

I have had my backup light wiring done for some time now but I wasn't really sure what type of lights I wanted. I came up with this . I used the same foglights I have on the front of the truck and fitted them into the rear bumper for a nice clean look. I took a standard 4" rubber light grommet that I bought at a trucking parts supply and cut about 1/2" out of it, then remelted it back together to reduce the diameter to fit the fog. I played with hole sizes in cardboard before cutting my bumper. The result is a nice snug fit. The standard fog bulb is 37. 5 watts and has the tip coated to direct the light back towards the reflector but it limits the amount of light that is thrown forward, or in my case backwards. I replaced them with 885 bulbs which are 50 watts and uncoated, resulting in a much more floody pattern. They throw a pretty good light behind the truck and I can even aim them by moving them within the grommets. I thought heat might be an issue but after having left them on for 15 minutes, they are not any warmer to the touch than the stock bulbs. I had a little room to play as far as the placement went left to right. I used a cardboard circle to locate the lights in different places before commiting to this layout. It is about the same spacing as the front lights and gives a nice even light pattern where I can see it in the mirrors. I have them wired through a relay and they will come on with reverse, with the ability to turn that function off, and also I can turn them on manually if needed.

 

[Midnight]

That's a nice clean installation. Nice job.

 

[magothy1]

Real nice work indeed. What did you use to cut the holes in the bumper?

 

[Allnew2Me]

Trawler, I taped off the bumper with duct tape to protect it and drew my circles, then I drilled a 1/4" hole at the bottom of the circle and cut it out with a Bosch jigsaw with a fine-tooth metal cutting blade on the non-orbital setting. It cut like butter. I filed the rough edges before inserting the grommet.

 

[nriver]

nice, what did you mount them to on the back side?

 

[Allnew2Me]

They are not mounted to anything but the rubber grommet. I reduced the size to allow them to snap into the rubber. I played with a few methods before settling on the standard light grommet. These are the same that you see on big trucks holding the brake or reverse lights. They were too big for my fogs so I cut out a section and melted them back together. the fogs are held in by a lip on the light and a groove inside the grommet.

 

[nriver]

cool, was wondering about that

thanks, looks like a cool project.

 

[Matt400]

Thats a really nice job, thanks for sharing the details! Oo.

 

[BOstiguy]

Allnew,

I'm mad at myself now! I have been planning to do this for months now and have yet to get around to it. I though it was an original idea and very clean and useful. ( I also wanted to wire as you did, manual operation for guys with highbeams on behind you).

They look great and at least now I know what they'll look like ( other than in my head)

Well done!

 

[TheBigSgt]

Really really Cool! Where did you get the rubber buckets at? Could you se if you could come up with part numbers for that and the lights?

 

[Russknh]

The rubber (bucket) type lights are used in all big truck and trailer applications. I would suggest you go to a place that carries large truck parts. The are available in many diferent sizes and colors/applications, many use leds and are also available in large oval patterns. They install very easy you just cut the hole slightly smaller than the rubber size and they have molding on both the inside and out which lock the light in and the grommet into the mounting surface

 

[TheBigSgt]

I've bent my rear a little already, but I might try this with the LED ones in the oval shape! A little eaiser for me I think! Now her is something to think might be fun, wiring it up for manual and auto for backup.

 

[Allnew2Me]

Big, as Russ said they are just the standard grommets used by larger trucks. I got mine at a truck part supply, look in the yellow pages under truck. They cost around 2 bucks so I bought a couple of extras to play with. I placed a piece of sheet metal in my vise and heated it with a propane torch and then held the cut ends of the rubber against it, lined up where I wanted it. Then I slid the rubber up until it moved off the metal and just held it together until it cooled.

The fog lights are the same lights used in second gen trucks as the front lights. I'm not sure that you can buy them separately at a reasonable price. I bought the kit which came with the new headlight switch, relay, harness (I used parts of this), and fuse block. I removed the mounting bracket from the lights so I had just the light itself.

Since I have done this I have seen another possibility for a light. I saw one of those toy trailers with the big drop down rear door and it had a couple recessed lights above the door that looked to be about the same size as the fogs, I might try to find them at an RV store to measure them and see what the wattage is on them. They may prove to be an alternative to the ones I used. You don't want to go any bigger because the bumper won't take much more in size or they will have to be shifted down, resulting in not enough light to the rear.

Big, the LED lights are cool but I don't know how much light they actually throw out, you might want to light one up first to see.

 

[TheBigSgt]

Well, I'm just looking to light up the rear area. I was also thinking of putting a relay in, so it would work automatic for the back up light. then a switch to override the relay.

 

[CNeubauer]

I really like how you did that. Last week I mounted some 2x6" KC lights under my back bumper that are protected by mounting them under some 3x4" angle iron but your's look like they came from the factory. I also did the sport light conversion and it's really nice to be able to see better in either direction at night.



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[steved]

You could have also simply got some 4" sealed beams (common at farm stores) and placed them in those rubber grommets you had, without modification...



I did this on my PW, and used the sealed beams since they were completely sealed (no way for water/salt/grime to get into the bulbs... they were as bright as any halogen light...



Nice idea... I might do this mod on my truck!!



steved

 

[Allnew2Me]

C, that is the way I have seen several done and if you really want lots of light that is the way to go because you can use some pretty powerful lights under the bumper like that. I was going to try that also with the Hella 110 watts lights that some of the guys in my local TDR club used, but I don't really need that much and I traded a little output for a more custom look that I got with the bumper mounts. If you are offroad a lot I think that the way you did yours would be a lot better. The nice thing about mine is that I can always add more lights if I ever needed them and just wire them into the ones I have now. I am running mine off a relay and I wired it with 12ga wire to insure enough juice to the back for any future additions. These really are quite bright and floody though so for now I'm happy with them.

 

[Allnew2Me]

Steved, I did look at the lights you are talking about but I found that they were a bit too big for where I wanted to mount them. If i used anything much bigger than what I did they would not mount below that bend in the bumper below the plastic cover unless they were mounted down lower in the bumper. I found through my experiments that any lower tended to light up the ground but not as much to the rear. I would hope that some of you would come up with other variations on my theme, it would be interesting to see other options. Thanks for all the comments.

 

[CNeubauer]

When I wired mine I ran two 12 ga and one 16 ga wire back to the rear bumper, the 16 gauge is wired into the factory backup lights, one 12ga wire is hooked into the extra backup lights and the second 12 ga wire is tied up behind the bumper in case I ever want to have a switched lighting circuit for trailer lights. Mine are also wired through a relay and a three position switch so they can be turned off, on in reverse or on all the time.



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[Allnew2Me]

My switches

I mounted my switches in the airbag controller cover. The left switch turns on the reverse function, when it is on, the bumper mounted lights will come on with reverse and the red LED lights but if I don't want to use the new backups I can turn them off. The middle switch turns on the lights manually and lights the red LED also. The right switch allows a backup alarm to come on with reverse if I want to use it. I may install a momentary-on push button on the steering shroud to use if I need a quick blast from them, it will tie into the middle manual switch.