Jeep Wrangler Forum banner

Installed My Backup Lights

6K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  amerijeep 
#1 ·
Installed my back-up lights.

Picked up a set of Hella Optilux 1450 fog lights. They are not expensive, fairly small so they fit nicely under the bumper and look pretty decent. They even come with a 30 AMP 12V relay and a very crappy wiring harness -
http://www.truckcustomizers.com/products/-HM-CM/K4HLA264.6.html

Got plenty of 10 gage cable, a couple of inline fuse holders, assorted terminal connectors and printed a copy of the wiring diagram from Stu Olson's - http://www.stu-offroad.com/electrical/elec8/backup-1.htm - Thanks Stu!

Since I was wiring them to go on manually or when the transmission is in reverse I had to locate the power cable for the factory backup lights. I tried to get this from fuse #7 behind the glove box but wasn’t having much luck and the space was pretty tight so I looked for an easier spot. Instead I tapped into the cable in the bundle that runs along the driver side under the door sill. On my 06 Unlimited this is a white cable with a light green stripe. I had to disconnect my rear light to figure this out. As you’ll see in the picture below simply taking the light cover off is not enough because the cable that runs from the connector to the bulb socket in the housing is actually a different color, purple with a black stripe.


I connected everything on my work bench to make sure that it worked as expected.


Once this was confirmed I began to run the two power lines from the battery to where I mounted the relay and switch. I ran the two cables along the rear of the engine bay and along the top of the firewall. I fed the cables through the firewall by fitting them through the rubber grommet that is in the lower left corner of the driver side foot well, behind the clutch pedal. This required a bit of patience and careful application of elbow grease in order not to puncture the rubber as I was pushing the 10 gage cable through.

Once the two 12V cables were there I mounted the switch where I wanted it on the dash. I also made wire harnesses for the relay and switch so I could install them in their permanent spot and start making the connections. Here are a few pictures of this.


The relay is mounted behind the firewall under the gage cluster.


I mounted the switch in the open space to the right of the cigarette lighter and power outlets, leaving as much space as possible for future needs.


Once I had everything where I wanted it up to this point, I tested with one of the lights to once again make sure things were working properly. Taking out the speaker from the dash on the driver side made things a little easier to manipulate in the area where I mounted the relay and was making the connections.


At this point I was ready to run the power cable to the back. I ran it along the driver side with the rest of the cable bundle that runs to the rear on that side. Once at the rear I fed the cable through the rubber grommet in the rear left corner of the tub, behind the roll-cage. This once again requires a bit of patience and care to avoid puncturing the rubber.


Once the cable was at the rear bumper I mounted the lights and added a second strand to the power cable so I could route each end to their respective lights.


To make the ground connection for the lights I drilled a hole on a small lip that is underneath the tub below where the cables run between the rear lights and connected everything up for the final test.


All that was left at this point was to tuck all the cables in and dress things up to hide the cables as much as possible.

The one thing that is left is to figure out how to wire the rocker switch to light up with my dash lights. If I am reading the diagram that came with the switch correctly, it shows that the pin for the LED’s should be connected to the ground but when I do this the lights stay on all the time. If anyone can offer any suggestions on this that’ll be much appreciated. Here are the details on the switch:
 
See less See more
10
#8 ·
Any reason your mounted the lights on the bottom side of the bumper? It would take my wife all of 2 seconds to break those off. :)
When I saw the mounting location, I just figured it was a mall crawler (no offence meant).....some Jeeps are destined to stay on the pavement, while others take the dirt road....it's all good.

just be careful of speed bumps
:eek:
 
#7 ·
this might be a stupid question, but is there not just some way to splice the wire into a spare male trailer harness and then plug that into your female trailer harness? I thought the back up lights work on my trailer, but maybe/most likely im wrong.... just thinking out loud though...
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top