Jeep light install

[Grant Lamontagne]

Maybe I just missed it but why green I usually see yellow and orange as safety strobes.

I would have preferred orange (amber) but the guy doing the install didn't have orange LED strips.  Also, my boss who paid for most of this had green installed on his and liked it, so that's what we went with.

Def

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[hrvstmn31]

Maybe I just missed it but why green I usually see yellow and orange as safety strobes.

I would have preferred orange (amber) but the guy doing the install didn't have orange LED strips.  Also, my boss who paid for most of this had green installed on his and liked it, so that's what we went with.

Def

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Makes sense why pay for what's free and if I recall they're not cheap.

[Grant Lamontagne]

They aren't expensive if you order them online.  You can buy them locally at places like Costco and Home Depot, and they still aren't really expensive, but they are several times what you pay when you order them from China on eBay or DX, so you don't want to buy local if you need a lot of them.  The guy that did the install does this kind of work as a personal business, so we went with what he had.  I think he had blue (big no no here since blue is reserved for Police only), red (also a big no no- you don't want to get caught with red lights on the front of a vehicle), green and pink, and so green was the choice- plus, as I said, my boss already had green and liked it, so that's what we went with, for uniformity in the company.  My boss liked to differentiate us from everyone else on site, and for a while we did have blue strobes, which got him in trouble a couple of times when he forgot to turn it off when leaving the job site!   

Def

[Whoey]

I never really understood that whole changing turn signals to clear covers and coloured bulbs... I'd seen them do it a few times on land rovers on wheeler dealers as "updating the look" and I agree it does look good in your case... makes you wonder what they were thinking to put the orange ones on the previous year... 

[Grant Lamontagne]

The reason they put orange lights on it is simple- that's what they've always done.

Def

[MadPlumbarian]

Looks good, so are you switching all lights to led? JR

[Grant Lamontagne]

That's the plan.  These are incandescent at the moment, as that is what the replacement lights came with.

Def

[MadPlumbarian]

That's the plan.  These are incandescent at the moment, as that is what the replacement lights came with.

Def

Cool, interesting idea! Can't wait to see the grill at night! JR

[Cupboard]

I really like what you've done because it all looks so neat.
So often you see 4x4s with loads of silly lights all over the place looking completely ridiculous but you've got a functional and good looking solution.

 

[Grant Lamontagne]

You mean like this one?





Seriously, this is probably all the lighting I will do on this Jeep.  I might do some other minor things, but I'm not going to put an external frame on the windshield and mount more lights on it like some guys do.





I'm not that afraid of the dark! 

As it is, the LED windshield lights are more flood than spot, so they really illuminate the hood more than I'd like or need.  I will probably do a similar light setup on my TJ, except that I will mount the LED lights on the bumper (where it currently has fog lights) and put something more spot-light-ish on the windshield brackets so I don't get as much reflection from the hood.

I did however order an interior LED kit today, to replace the interior lights.  They will look like the ones in my friend Alex's video:



Def

[derekmac]

Now don't pick on your boss Def! 

[Grant Lamontagne]

He was asked once, at noon on a sunny day to turn his lights off on a work site because he was blinding people.  Seriously. 

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

My clear signal lights arrived a couple of days ago, and I was pretty excited to install them.



That is, until I found out that I have to take half the bloody fender apart to do it!



What a pain in the arse.  I guess I'll wait until the nicer weather to do it, and probably also do the signal light mod as well.  One of the dumb things about these marker lights on the fender is that they really don't do anything, but with a small modification (one wire or two, depending on how you do it) you can get them to flash with (or opposite) the signal on the front.  To me it makes more sense to have a signal that flashes on the side as well as the front, but for some reason the folks at Dodge didn't think this was necessary.   

Luckily it's an easy enough fix!

Def

[ducttapetech]

Can't wait to see the new ones on it.

that's us mobile

[MadPlumbarian]

Nicer weather? Oh come on, this is spring! You don't get nicer weather! lol, heck we got snow yesterday,, JR

[Grant Lamontagne]

Nicer weather? Oh come on, this is spring! You don't get nicer weather! lol, heck we got snow yesterday,, JR

We are experiencing what all the weather outlets are saying is going to be the worst storm in ten years, with 70mph winds and about a foot and a half to two feet of snow.

If you want to go out and crawl around under a truck in that and play with wiring, by all means, go for it.  I'm going to stay inside, drink hot chocolate and watch TV until the power goes out. 

Def

[Whoey]

seeing as it's a storm... shouldn't you be standing around for hours at autoport? 
 

[derekmac]

seeing as it's a storm... shouldn't you be standing around for hours at autoport? 

He does have a point you know. 
 

[Grant Lamontagne]

I would, but no one is coming to visit and I'm not in Chicago!   

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

The interior LED kit arrived the other day and I haven't had much of a chance to do much with them yet.  The worst part is, there are twelve "bulbs" but no identification for each.  According to the seller the set includes the following:

 Front Dome Light  X 1

 Front map lightsx2

 Vanity Mirror Light  X 2

 Golve Box Light  X 1

 Under Dash Light X 2

 Trunk Light X 2

 License Plate Light  X 2

But, they don't tell you which ones are which, which I find annoying.  I have identified the map reading lights so far, which are the ones on the first crossbar, just above the driver and passenger seats.  I had a quick look at them while waiting for labor on a job this morning, and figured out which set of LED's should replace them.  Here is the BEFORE photo:



These are the standard incandescent bulbs that come with the Jeep.  Here is the comparison after I replaced the first bulb:



I didn't bother trying to get a photo once both were replaced because all you'd see are just bright white lights!   

Two down, ten more to go....

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

More LED's installed today- or at least attempted to...

The Jeep silliness has continued in that there is a slot cut out in the glove box for a switch, but there is no light, nor any place to put one.  And, no switch.  It seems like I have been a bit cheated as some research has shown me that some JK's have come with a switch and no light.  I will have to complain to my dealer about that.   

Oh well, onward and backwards.  I opened the rear dome light and found this old glass fuse type bulb.



As you can see, it's plenty bright on it's own.



Since I am guessing as to what lights go where, my next thought was that this is one of the small bar lights with the big heat sink on the back.





After popping the old light out I compared the two:



I don't know how well it shows up in the photos, but the LED is ever so slightly thinner than the original one, which meant that it was a bit loose in the clips.  It still works though, and it's a lot brighter than the original.  The question is, will it move around and possibly break contact and not work until it is moved back?  If so that will be frustrating, but not the end of the world.  If it does I might secure it in place with a little bit of glue.






So then I went to replace the light over the license plate, which was actually a lot easier to replace than I think any of the other lights were.  Just squeeze the two clips on either side of teh lens and it pops right out.



The original one wasn't all that bright, but I really don't worry too much about my plate being visible since most people put those plastic shields over them to obscure them, or leave snow all over them so they are unreadable etc.



Out pops the housing:



In goes the LED:



Which is nice and bright:



But then doesn't fit back in the lens housing, so I have to pull it back out and go back to the incandescent bulb.

So, just to review, here's what I have so far:

Front Dome Light  X 1  No such thing in this Jeep

 Front map lightsx2    Replaced, functional

 Vanity Mirror Light  X 2    Doesn't exist in this truck

 Golve Box Light  X 1    Dodge apparently forgot that they were supposed to install these

 Under Dash Light X 2    Not found or believed to exist

 Trunk Light X 2    Not found or believed to exist

 License Plate Light  X 2    Only need one, and the bloody thing doesn't fit

So, that's it- three out of twelve.  Not my best score ever, that's for sure.

Def

[MadPlumbarian]

So what's next? JR
Ah cool that was my 2500th post!

[Grant Lamontagne]

For the immediate future I plan to contact the seller and complain about these sets, especially as I had bought two sets- one for me and one for Jeff.  I had thought about stealing one of the lights I used for the interior from his set to light up my license plate, but it seems those bulbs are actually missing from his set already.

I will contact the seller to straighten this out, and I imagine I will get satisfaction since I have not yet left feedback.   

In the slightly longer term, I need to chase down a short in my HID headlights, since often one or the other won't light up.  Also, the switch that controls my green flashers seems to have a short in it as well, so I will have to look at fixing or replacing it too.

Def

[Whoey]

surely you can pop the fuse style bulb out of the fuse clips and squeeze them tighter, that way you should have less/no movement.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I have been trading messages with the seller on eBay and so far things seem well.  They are going to send out replacement bulbs which I appreciate.  I have also sent them a link to this thread and some photos explaining which bulbs were missing.  I have also asked if they have additional LED bulbs that I need to replace the incandescent bulbs I have in my signal and marker lights.

With any luck I'll be installing more LED bulbs in a month or so.

Which of course leads me to wonder, why the heck don't manufacturers just install LED's in the first place?  They are cheaper, longer lasting, less temperamental, brighter and draw less energy which should increase fuel economy, shouldn't it?

Unless they are in some kind of unholy agreement with Sylvania or Phillips, I just can't see the point.

Def

[derekmac]

Yep, makes no sense nowadays for cars to come with incandescent bulbs. LED bulbs are of much better quality now and are also super cheap.

[MadPlumbarian]

Idk, it would make sense! Heck my microwave took a crap last month and the new one that we got has an led light! I thought it was weird at first cause it just shocked me, but it's neat, so now the only thing in my house that isn't fluorescent or led is the oven or the fridge! JR

[Grant Lamontagne]

Watch out for CF bulbs.   They have been linked to increases in seizures and other health problems.

I'm slowly replacing a lot of my household bulbs and fixtures to LED ones.

I just don't see the point of incandescent bulbs anymore for general applications.  Sure they probably still have their place, but in most day to day things I just don't see the point.

Def

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[Grant Lamontagne]

By the way, this is a photo of the map reading LED bulbs not lit up so you can see what they look like.

I also noticed that the rear dome light is more blue while the ones at the front are more white.  Not a real big deal but I wish the one in the back was more white for a more balanced look.

Def

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[MadPlumbarian]

Watch out for CF bulbs.   They have been linked to increases in seizures and other health problems.

I'm slowly replacing a lot of my household bulbs and fixtures to LED ones.

I just don't see the point of incandescent bulbs anymore for general applications.  Sure they probably still have their place, but in most day to day things I just don't see the point.

Def

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Well thanks for that tidbit, I'll have to tell the wife that, I want to change over to the led cause they don't take five min to completely warm up, give a much more clean light, and supposedly last longer, but there expensive, I started a post here about doing so but everyone was pretty much against it since they don't last long as they say.. JR