Underhood Lighting

[05Single]

Plus, isn't it dark up there like 20 hours a day during parts of the year.....lol

Don't remind me

 

[Therealcrazy8]

Tonight I installed 2 more lights (not 100% completed yet). One of the issues I had was that no matter what I did, these 2 did not want to work correctly when daisy chained. This means that for my 2 pairs of lights, I have 3 power and 3 ground wires. This got me thinking. I have 2 rails I can use from the center console I built when I had my crown vick that I can use to better deal with these wires and getting power to the lights.

I'm thinking I'll use one for positive and one for negative...so pretty much what they were before, only this time Ill feed one thicker + and - wire directly to the battery from the rails.

My thought was to screw the rails onto the inside body behind the battery.

I will have to run a set of cables to the inside of the cab for my ham radio, so either way I need to figure something out as far as connecting all of these wires and using the power/ground rails that I now have available, that seems like the way to go. Is there any reason I shouldn't mount them behind the battery on this wall? Since I don't have access (from what I can tell) to the other side of this wall, what would be the best thing to use to screw the rails in place that wouldn't require me to put a nut on the back side?

Thank you all for your help

 

[Rocket Man]

That looks like a mess. Why not just buy a roll of LED's on a strip with adhesive on the backside like I did? Just look on EBay for 5630 LED strip lights. They're only about $8 shipped for a 15' roll and you can cut them to any length and Daisy chain them together.

 

[Therealcrazy8]

That looks like a mess. Why not just buy a roll of LED's on a strip with adhesive on the backside like I did? Just look on EBay for 5630 LED strip lights. They're only about $8 shipped for a 15' roll and you can cut them to any length and Daisy chain them together.

I was looking at those and the only reason I didn't use those was because I wasn't sure how bright they'd be and how'd they look. But, with that said, That may be the better option. The wires just look like a mess now because I haven't tidied them up. That's where using those two rails would come into play. Everything else is in wire loom right now.

 

[Rocket Man]

They're real bright. I can see to work under the hood great. Here's a couple shots of the ones I put under my doors. The wires needed are tiny. I used heat shrink on mine and on the ones under the hood, I ran 3 strips (sides and at the front) and where the wires go around the corners I just used silicone and temporarily taped them in place until the silicone dried. You do need to solder the wire to the tabs where you cut the strips which you can do at any length.

 

[Fosscore]

That is super bright. Looks great.

 

[Therealcrazy8]

I think I came up with a solution... As of right now, the lights I have under the hood work great and will serve their purpose. Once I have everything cleaned up, it should look pretty good. One of the things I was thinking about was the use of the rails. I didn't want to drill holes if I didn't have too, especially since at some point ill be using the LED light strips to replace what I have now and may not even need the rails. My solution for that was the use of very strong 3" x 1/2" x 1/8" neodymium magnets attached to the back of the rails. This will allow me to hook everything up, keep everything in place, and if I decide that I don't need to use the rails when I do the LED strips, then they can easily be removed and no holes to worry about. I'll be sure to post pics once everything is completed.

In the end, I am intending on replacing everything with LED strips. I really do like the idea of the under door lighting, so that may be one of my next projects. I am planning on putting a little light in my center console arm rest so its not so dark in there when I open it. I have a mercury style switch for that install. Stay tuned for that.

 

[Therealcrazy8]

The light install is finished. Here is the switch installed and everything working.