super bright backup lights in factory bumper

So I was having my rear bumper repainted and my friend planted the idea with me that I needed some super bright backup lights.

So I picked up some little 35 W driving lights at checker, also avail from Jc Whitney and other online. Poked some holes in the vertical surface of the bumper with a 2.25" hole saw.

After I got it back from the body shop, I pulled a 12 ga wire from an inline fuse on the PDC (Underhood). I had a nice relay and wiring harness left over from a previous project. I mounted it just behind the bumper. (Be careful not to punch into your plastic gas tank with your drill!) Tapped the factory trailer wiring for a backup light connection. This switches the relay when the factory lights come on. If you don't have factory towing, you might need to grab it from behind one of your taillights.

JB Welded the brackets to the inside of the bumper and bolted everything up.

Now it's like you have headlights in reverse, too! I'm going to add a switch inside to turn them on constantly when in park or any gear--a cargo/loading/trailer hookup light. Wiring diagram to follow.

You could do the same mount detail on the front for driving lights. I think it would like really nice on a pre-97 XJ with the wider bumper. You could also use rectangular lights, but I chose the round ones so I could make the cuts real quick with a whole saw.

And here's some pics of it tonight:

LOL
yeah, your backup lights are now twice as bright as your headlights! :doh:
I suggest driving backwards from now on

I was thinking about the same thing when I had to take off my bumper to install nutstrips. I wonder if the loss of bumper stiffness matters though.

You won't lose any stiffness in your bumper from those two little holes.

You're right, those are tiny. I think they're outside of the mounts anyway so it wouldn't affect unibody stiffness.

My tire carrier blocks my factory backup lights, so I did this:



Works great, but the cheap lights I bought are crappy, the wiring in them seems to get loose an occasionally not work