How to Wire Off Road Lights?

[JeepManDan]

I like to just think of it as a "circut". It starts at the positive terminal on the battery, runs through a wire preferably to a fuse, then onward to the light, and then back to a ground which will be grounded somewhere on the jeep, which connects back to the negative side of the battery.

It seems like you got it covered, but it never hurts having another way of thinking. Good luck!

 

[bzauche]

Good luck, you got dis!

Thanks! One last question...someone had posted earlier in the thread that I needed DPST relays that apparently don't have an 87a, just two 87's. Is this necessary? Also, what type of switch am I looking for? If I want to run just one switch, would I be looking to get a DPST switch? Because of the two wires coming into the switch?

I like to just think of it as a "circut". It starts at the positive terminal on the battery, runs through a wire preferably to a fuse, then onward to the light, and then back to a ground which will be grounded somewhere on the jeep, which connects back to the negative side of the battery.

It seems like you got it covered, but it never hurts having another way of thinking. Good luck!

Thanks! I think I'm starting to grasp it all!

 

[xcm]

I tend to use the relays as shown, with the 87, and 87a. The 87a can be considered a 'when the lights are OFF, this acc is ON,' When the relay is tripped the 87a goes off... These are the cheapest and most abundant, ive found... to be honest i source relays at the junkyard by the pocketfull. Many aftermarket relays dont use the conventional terminal layout... and that can be a pain in the butt.... theyre also not quite OEM quality, the oem stuff most often works 20 years later, but ive had aftermarket cheapies dead on arrival.

The ones you talk about, with the double 87 pin, are awesome... but harder to find and slightly more coin. They work great in situations like headlights, or offroad lights, as you have double outputs... No need to splice or split the output. If youre buying relays, sure, buy the double 87's, it'll make wiring cleaner.

 

[bzauche]

I tend to use the relays as shown, with the 87, and 87a. The 87a can be considered a 'when the lights are OFF, this acc is ON,' When the relay is tripped the 87a goes off... These are the cheapest and most abundant, ive found... to be honest i source relays at the junkyard by the pocketfull. Many aftermarket relays dont use the conventional terminal layout... and that can be a pain in the butt.... theyre also not quite OEM quality, the oem stuff most often works 20 years later, but ive had aftermarket cheapies dead on arrival.

The ones you talk about, with the double 87 pin, are awesome... but harder to find and slightly more coin. They work great in situations like headlights, or offroad lights, as you have double outputs... No need to splice or split the output. If youre buying relays, sure, buy the double 87's, it'll make wiring cleaner.

So if I was able to get relays with two 87 pins, I'd have one light hooked up to each? Instead of two hooked up to 87 and nothing hooked up to 87a?

 

[bzauche]

I got all 4 lights for Christmas so I just placed my Del City order:

White Primary Wire, 14 Ga (100 ft)
Ring Terminals, 1/4" Stud, 16-14 Ga
Female Push-On Terminals, .250", 16-14 Ga
DPST On-Off Full Size Rocker
Normally Open Relay, 12V (2)
20 Amp Mini® Fuse (2)
Mini Fuse Holder, 12-Ga, 30 amp max (2)
Black Slit Loom, 3/8" (to conceal the wire and keep it nice and tidy)
Quick Connect Female Terminals, 16-14Ga
Quick Connect Male Terminals, 16-14 Ga
Body for Female Terminals, 4 contact
Body for Male Terminal, 4 contact

I plan on taking lots of pictures and hopefully doing a write-up of the project for anyone's future use! Wish me luck!

 

[BotakBeng]

I got all 4 lights for Christmas so I just placed my Del City order:

White Primary Wire, 14 Ga (100 ft)
Ring Terminals, 1/4" Stud, 16-14 Ga
Female Push-On Terminals, .250", 16-14 Ga
DPST On-Off Full Size Rocker
Normally Open Relay, 12V (2)
20 Amp Mini® Fuse (2)
Mini Fuse Holder, 12-Ga, 30 amp max (2)
Black Slit Loom, 3/8" (to conceal the wire and keep it nice and tidy)
Quick Connect Female Terminals, 16-14Ga
Quick Connect Male Terminals, 16-14 Ga
Body for Female Terminals, 4 contact
Body for Male Terminal, 4 contact

I plan on taking lots of pictures and hopefully doing a write-up of the project for anyone's future use! Wish me luck!

Looking forward!
Don't mean to hijack but been reading this thread and still didn't understand where to connect switch#3 wire to 12V "Run Source".
Care to elaborate pls?

Thx!

 

[scoobyxj]

Looking forward!
Don't mean to hijack but been reading this thread and still didn't understand where to connect switch#3 wire to 12V "Run Source".
Care to elaborate pls?

Thx!

Connecting to a 12v run source just means connecting the power to run the coil side (low current side) of the relay to power that is only on when the key is on. That way the lights or acc will only operate when the key is on run or acc. On the XJ you can just tap into the acc power plug for a switched 12v source or the cig lighter for a constant source.

Running a relay is two complete circuits. You have a low current (amps) side with the switch where the power flows through the switch then the relay coil (almost like a very tiny light bulb), and then to ground. On the heavy current side the power flows though the relay to your lights, or other acc and then to ground. The relay is your switch. When power flows through the coil of the relay it become a magnet that pull the contacts of the relay together completing the circuit on the heavy current side.



The12volt.com has some good reading on basic automotive circuits. Here is a link directly to the relays section.

 

[bzauche]

My Del City order should get here tomorrow afternoon, and the progress will begin shortly thereafter!

One more question. When I ground the wires from the lights, does it need to be to a clean metal surface that leads to another clean metal surface, and so on? I was hoping to ground them to the bolts that I have holding in my homemade mounting tabs. The wires would be touching bare metal and wrapped around a bare metal bolt, but that surface comes in contact with a bedlined surface. I'm not super versed electrically speaking so maybe someone can lend some advice!

 

[xcm]

When people get super anal about ground's being clean... its often computer stuff, or sensors, these use the ground to calibrate, so it has to be PERFECT....

PERSONALLY, I ground all my negative's back to the negative battery terminal because i use HID conversions, and that seems to eliminate any flickering or twitch's. A better ground path never hurts.

To a bolt, will be fine.

 

[scoobyxj]

My Del City order should get here tomorrow afternoon, and the progress will begin shortly thereafter!

One more question. When I ground the wires from the lights, does it need to be to a clean metal surface that leads to another clean metal surface, and so on? I was hoping to ground them to the bolts that I have holding in my homemade mounting tabs. The wires would be touching bare metal and wrapped around a bare metal bolt, but that surface comes in contact with a bedlined surface. I'm not super versed electrically speaking so maybe someone can lend some advice!

A good ground is essential. They won't even work if the electricity can't make it's complete circuit. You can test your ground choice by just hooking a wire up to the light and temp connect it to the + side of the battery touch the other wire to where you want to ground it and see if it lights up you're good to go. More than likely you're going to need to at least run a wire to the body of the jeep. You could do from each light, or you could ground the rack, and then ground each light to the rack.

Here are some pictures of how I did mine.

I remover the roof rails and drilled a hole directly above the C pillar, and ran my wires down the C pillar to my relay/power board I had set up in the back behind one of the trim panels.
Notice I used grommets to protect the wiring from getting chaffed on the metal.

Here is the wires running down the rails.

The original lights that I installed (they where worthless).

A later picture of the rack, and lights I had on it.

I never did install lights on the front of the rack. I did a H4 conversion using Cibie lenses, 90/100wbulbs and ultra heavy duty headlight harness, and a pair of 100w fluted ProComp lights on the bumper.

(Yes I know the naxja.org sticker was spelled wrong on the back. It was a misprint, and I didn't catch it till after I took the picture.)

 

[bzauche]

When people get super anal about ground's being clean... its often computer stuff, or sensors, these use the ground to calibrate, so it has to be PERFECT....

PERSONALLY, I ground all my negative's back to the negative battery terminal because i use HID conversions, and that seems to eliminate any flickering or twitch's. A better ground path never hurts.

To a bolt, will be fine.

Thanks for the tip!

A good ground is essential. They won't even work if the electricity can't make it's complete circuit. You can test your ground choice by just hooking a wire up to the light and temp connect it to the + side of the battery touch the other wire to where you want to ground it and see if it lights up you're good to go. More than likely you're going to need to at least run a wire to the body of the jeep. You could do from each light, or you could ground the rack, and then ground each light to the rack.

Here are some pictures of how I did mine.

I remover the roof rails and drilled a hole directly above the C pillar, and ran my wires down the C pillar to my relay/power board I had set up in the back behind one of the trim panels.
Notice I used grommets to protect the wiring from getting chaffed on the metal.

Here is the wires running down the rails.

The original lights that I installed (they where worthless).

A later picture of the rack, and lights I had on it.

I never did install lights on the front of the rack. I did a H4 conversion using Cibie lenses, 90/100wbulbs and ultra heavy duty headlight harness, and a pair of 100w fluted ProComp lights on the bumper.

(Yes I know the naxja.org sticker was spelled wrong on the back. It was a misprint, and I didn't catch it till after I took the picture.)

Thanks a lot for the pictures! I think the PO had his old lights grounded to the body of the XJ right near where the wires entered the hatch, so I think I'll be able to use that location. I'll try to shy away from just grounding them to the bolts though, because that's one metal surface that doesn't come in contact with any other bare metal surfaces. As far as mounting my relays goes...is it better to mount them in the engine bay? How did you mount yours under that trim? I would love to be able to mount them behind a trim piece in the trunk, assuming that I'll have enough wire to do that.

 

[jeeperjohn]

I like to just think of it as a "circut". It starts at the positive terminal on the battery, runs through a wire preferably to a fuse, then onward to the light, and then back to a ground which will be grounded somewhere on the jeep, which connects back to the negative side of the battery.

It seems like you got it covered, but it never hurts having another way of thinking. Good luck!

I personally never pull full circuit current through a switch. They tend to heat up and fail at the worst possible time. I only run the light gauge coil side of the relay circuit through a switch, that way there is no heat buildup and the switch lasts a long time. I have had a few switches get messed up before I started doing it this way.

 

[scoobyxj]

Thanks a lot for the pictures! I think the PO had his old lights grounded to the body of the XJ right near where the wires entered the hatch, so I think I'll be able to use that location. I'll try to shy away from just grounding them to the bolts though, because that's one metal surface that doesn't come in contact with any other bare metal surfaces. As far as mounting my relays goes...is it better to mount them in the engine bay? How did you mount yours under that trim? I would love to be able to mount them behind a trim piece in the trunk, assuming that I'll have enough wire to do that.

That should work just fine. Like I said you can run a ground wire from each light back to that location, or you can just ground the rack to that location which will allow you to just ground each light to the rack.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the relay/power board that I had in the blue jeep, but it was pretty much just a small board with all my rear end relays on it. I used a couple of metal brackets to attach it to the sheet metal behind the trim panel on the passenger side. It also had a small fuse block on it so I could individually fuse each circuit. I had a heavy 2AWG running back to under the back seat from there it distributed out to my audio amps, and a 10AWG protected by a 40A circuit breaker ran to the fuse block on the relay board. I had six switches on the trim bezal that goes around the gear shifter, and used 22AWG wire to run the control side of my relays.

 

[bzauche]

That should work just fine. Like I said you can run a ground wire from each light back to that location, or you can just ground the rack to that location which will allow you to just ground each light to the rack.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the relay/power board that I had in the blue jeep, but it was pretty much just a small board with all my rear end relays on it. I used a couple of metal brackets to attach it to the sheet metal behind the trim panel on the passenger side. It also had a small fuse block on it so I could individually fuse each circuit. I had a heavy 2AWG running back to under the back seat from there it distributed out to my audio amps, and a 10AWG protected by a 40A circuit breaker ran to the fuse block on the relay board. I had six switches on the trim bezal that goes around the gear shifter, and used 22AWG wire to run the control side of my relays.

Sounds intense! I'll definitely take something like that into consideration. I just received my order, and the relays have an 87 contact, and an 87a contact. I ordered this one because the site lists it as having dual 87 contacts. Will the 87 and 87a function as a normal 87? I just want to be able to have all 4 lights going into the 2 relays without having to combine wires.

 

[hubs97xj]

A 5 pin relay with an 87A pin is a "switching" or SPDT (Single Pole Double Throw) relay. The 87A pin is "Normally Closed" (always on), while the 87 is Normally Open (off unless the relay is energized).

http://www.the12volt.com/relays/relays.asp

If you want dual 87 contacts, get a KC 3300 from NAPA, Qtec, Summit Racing, etc, or its equivalent.

http://www.amazon.com/KC-Hilites-3300-Volt-Relay/dp/B0002MAE0M

 

[bzauche]

A 5 pin relay with an 87A pin is a "switching" or SPDT (Single Pole Double Throw) relay. The 87A pin is "Normally Closed" (always on), while the 87 is Normally Open (off unless the relay is energized).

http://www.the12volt.com/relays/relays.asp

If you want dual 87 contacts, get a KC 3300 from NAPA, Qtec, Summit Racing, etc, or its equivalent.

http://www.amazon.com/KC-Hilites-3300-Volt-Relay/dp/B0002MAE0M

Even the one you linked has an 87 and an 87A, as said in the Amazon reviews. These are the ones I bought:

http://www.delcity.net/store/Normally-Open-Relay-w:-Dual-87-Contacts/p_791795.a_1

Will the 87A pin function just like it's the regular 87 pin or do I need to combine wires?

 

[hubs97xj]

I'm using that exact KC relay. It has two normally open pins.

The relay you bought says it has dual contacts; have you actually tested it, or are you just assuming it's wrong? Maybe it's a mistake to assume the pins will be labelled 87, 87a, or 87b (obviously, 12volt.com uses different terminology and pin numbering that I have seen or been using). Be more concerned with when they open and close.

edit- forget the 87/a/b stuff for the time being. If the relay from delcity is what you got, it should work as described. The common and the output pins should have continuity when the relay is energized, and be open when it's not.

 

[BotakBeng]

Even the one you linked has an 87 and an 87A, as said in the Amazon reviews. These are the ones I bought:

http://www.delcity.net/store/Normally-Open-Relay-w:-Dual-87-Contacts/p_791795.a_1

Will the 87A pin function just like it's the regular 87 pin or do I need to combine wires?

Thx for the link!
I will be a great help for newbie (like myself) is you can provide the part# (or links if it is not too much of a trouble ) of your hardness set-up.

I just bought a KC6315 set but the relay socket was too loose and the lights would flicker....returning them and building myself like you did.

Thx in advance and GL.

 

[bzauche]

I'm using that exact KC relay. It has two normally open pins.

The relay you bought says it has dual contacts; have you actually tested it, or are you just assuming it's wrong? Maybe it's a mistake to assume the pins will be labelled 87, 87a, or 87b (obviously, 12volt.com uses different terminology and pin numbering that I have seen or been using). Be more concerned with when they open and close.

edit- forget the 87/a/b stuff for the time being. If the relay from delcity is what you got, it should work as described. The common and the output pins should have continuity when the relay is energized, and be open when it's not.

I'm not assuming they're wrong, for some reason I thought it would just have two pins labeled 87. I will definitely wire it up as I had planned and see what happens.

Thx for the link!
I will be a great help for newbie (like myself) is you can provide the part# (or links if it is not too much of a trouble ) of your hardness set-up.

I just bought a KC6315 set but the relay socket was too loose and the lights would flicker....returning them and building myself like you did.

Thx in advance and GL.

I can give you links to everything I bought if you want. I am not using a harness of any sort; everything is hand wired. Do you want links of everything? I can definitely do that once I finish up for the day, taking a short break right now; 90% done wiring the rack! I might save the Jeep part of the wiring for tomorrow, we'll see.

 

[BotakBeng]

I can give you links to everything I bought if you want. I am not using a harness of any sort; everything is hand wired. Do you want links of everything? I can definitely do that once I finish up for the day, taking a short break right now; 90% done wiring the rack! I might save the Jeep part of the wiring for tomorrow, we'll see.

That would be freaking awesome!!!